What to Carry for Self Care in Your Purse
January 7th, 2017
They say the state of a woman's purse is the state of her soul. The purse I carry is relatively small, but like the narrator at the beginning of Aladdin says of his magic lamp: “Do not be fooled by its commonplace appearance – like so many things, it is not what is outside, but what is inside that counts.”
This is no ordinary purse.
While the outside is a stylish well-worn camel leather, splotched, sadly, with ink stains from The Unfortunate Pen Incident of 2014, the inside is more Mary-Poppins-carpet-bag in its magical capacity to store things you didn't think would fit. On so many occasions I have expressed a need of some sort, placed an exploratory hand inside this vessel, and emerged with the solution to many practical emergencies. Forgotten chocolate to bypass hangriness. A bandaid for paper cuts that happen mid-streetcar ride because I took my love of voracious reading a little too far. Finger puppets (don't ask). Needle and thread to sew a flimsy summer strap. Randomly and serendipitously, while in IKEA: a tape measure I'd borrowed from a friend and forgotten about.