The Original “Go Bag”: My Grandma’s Purse
While survivalists and military folks plan for this slow moving Apocalypse, I know what I’m taking with me — the old lady purse. I’m a recent convert to this particular preparation. Grandma had a white, leather, oxymoronically misnamed “pocketbook,” which matched her white, leather geriatric shoes.
Occasionally she let me take a peak inside. A clown car of riches were scattered amid a dizzying array of zippered compartments. Tissues, a wallet, plastic hair bonnet against the rain, leftover muffins, packets of sweeteners and pieces of silverware she’d stolen on her vast and varied travels rested in harmonious chaos amid a waterfall of hard fruit candy with smooshie, cavity inducing insides.
In my youth, I wanted the smallest possible handbag, only enough for a wallet, a lipstick, a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. I was on the prowl for some unburdened mobility, unlike the foremothers I watched lugging around gigantic WNYC tote bags, overflowing with their own experience, depredation and many fears.
My Mom was a handsome, leggy woman with a pageboy haircut and light green eyes around the time I was studying her go bag. It was stuffed with endless rolls of subway tokens, a meticulously organized wallet, and a key ring fit for a janitor. She carried a pen, a spiral pad I never saw her write in, a battered Dayplanner phonebook, and a revolving novel she went through as quickly as the bag of root beer barrel sucking candies she tucked inside its forbidden recesses. Her father smoked from a cigarette holder like a silent movie star; she kept hers in a case that snapped shut and went mysteriously missing. Constantly. And I was only stealing them sometimes.
Mom had a ready compact with cracked powder she didn’t use and a gold plated lipstick case that opened with a twist onto a crayon of mulberry that clung stubbornly to the outside edges of her mouth, so that she looked like a clown by the time she made it to any ladies room.
My father didn’t appreciate the earth tones she loved so much, so she let go of the browns and switched to bright reds hoping to keep him close to home. He did what he was going to do anyway.
While my grandmother’s purse overflowed with good things — toys and the rotation of candies, Mom stuck to her barrels, which I hated, be she added in the occasional butterscotch and replaced the rain bonnet with an umbrella that never properly worked. Grandma was ready for any party, my mother prepared for every disaster, not leaving the house without a sewing kit and clear nail polish for the inevitable run in one’s nylons. Both versions proved essential.
I knew the lined insides of her knock off purses intimately, heard the pop-snap of its fastener opening or the rip of the zipper coming apart. I didn’t dare go in there while she was looking, but as a teenager I listened for it so I could time my forays into stealing money from her to feed a myriad of addictions — many of them mine. For her, there was no secret pocket.
Her hands acted like magnets attracting whatever she sought as though the object knew it was time for it to come out. Her fingernails were always painted, first brown, and then some sort of berry, though it wasn’t until much later that she had those professionally done. I sat on the closed toilet and watched her put on the makeup she swore she hated, and though I wanted to help, she wouldn’t allow it. Until she had no choice.
My grandmother and the pantheon of old aunts passed the purses to my mother and her generation and now onto me — a menopausal imperative. Pack everything possible because you don’t know what you’ll need! And, after a lifetime of heaving everyone else’s unbagged burden, we’ve learned the hard way, the older you are, the more you need to bring. Above all, don’t be caught without the pharmaceuticals and bandaids keeping you alive.
If I had been fortunate enough to have girls, I would have stuck my face right in there to make sure there were no lighters, cigarettes or whatever passes for cool rebellion these days. Not that it isn’t all happening on their phones anyway.
Smoking paraphernalia and the smell of stale smoke were replaced by a pile of errant pacifiers and child preoccupations, and now bottles of cures for a myriad of maladies. My pocketbook is full of the usual essentials, along with an endless supply of gum and tissues. The wrappers remain there longer than makes sense, the dollar bills are stuffed willy nilly into my wallet, and my hands refuse to find what I’m looking for. Every bundle is different, after all.
I’ve added a fancy phone to my Coach knock off, along with some chargers, many of which are obsolete but I’m unable to toss just in case. My kindle is nestled on top of a mailbox key (the only one left not opened by my phone), behind the mints and adjacent to the protein bar. I do have a secret compartment and I’m not telling.
The thing about old ladies and our purses is, we’ve learned through generations. Someone must carry the essentials — it’s inevitable in the way that some sort of birth has to come before any death.
The relics differ from generation to generation, but the sentiment is the same. There are three essentials to any go bag. Wallet. Tissues. Candy. Everything else is the accumulation of your own exquisite needs and those that we have loved so well and are willing to carry on our shoulders.
