My purse tells a story of its own

Do you remember what was in your grandmother’s purse?

My Grandma’s purse smelled like “Juicy Fruit” gum and there always was at least a stick or two in there for the little kid I was at the time.

I don’t chew the stuff today but if I catch the scent of Juicy Fruit wafting by it takes me way, way back.

By comparison, my purse smells like the old moldy apple I found in the bottomless pit of the thing. 

Remember the old 1970s game show, “Let’s Make a Deal”?

Game show host Monty Hall would walk through the audience and ask people, mainly women, to play for money based on what was in their purse. 

If that show existed today and I was a contestant, I would come out of it a winner, because everything Monty Hall asked for I would have had in my purse—even an old, fuzzy-haired, rotten apple.

And I don’t even like my purse. In fact I loathe the thing. It’s heavier than I am and if I have to show up in public swinging the monstrosity on a strap over my shoulder, I can be assured it will pinch off a nerve and render my arm useless all the way to my fingertips. All I can think about is the packhorses out there that carry burdens like that for a living. Poor souls.

Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher from the sixth century, once said: “To handle difficulties, handle them when they are small and just beginning.” 

I should have applied that little piece of advice before I bought a purse and instead used the small pockets of my jeans to stuff the essentials in.

In my grandmother’s era, all she had in her purse were the vitals of life—gum, a wallet, and her car keys.

Today we are convinced that we need a bigger everything and we carry the house inside our purses. Quite frankly, there’s only one place where size matters and it’s not in my handbag.

However much to my chagrin I, too, have become a part of the larger all-in-one purse collective and now I can’t find anything that I put in there.   

I had the bright idea to carry a small safety flashlight in my purse but I hope I never have to find it in a hurry.

When I do dig around in there, thankfully I do find my wallet. 

There also are seven tubes of lipstick and two tubes of sunscreen chap stick, one of which looks like it expired in mid-summer 2014. By my obviously sunburned lips, that’s the one I’ve been using while on my sunny winter excursions.

I found keys on chains for locks I know nothing about, a never-before-seen USB memory stick in a sealed plastic bag, and a compass?

Suddenly I am transported into a movie with a “secret documents” plot.

I was as surprised by the memory stick showing up in my purse as I was when I was raising windows in my car with the automatic button and a plastic gift card for a local restaurant came up from inside the door. Lucky me for once. It had enough money on it to buy me a hamburger.

And just when I thought my purse was empty, I turned it upside down and shook the thing. Out dropped a micro-screwdriver, (used once to fix a pair of expensive sunglasses that the next day were flattened under the wheels of my car after I left them on the hood,) a worry stone (rubbed nearly in half in the weeks leading up to tax time,) a corkscrew, three pen knives, a “Leatherman,” a magnifying glass, dental floss, ear plugs, tooth brush, Band-Aids, a comb, bobby pins, a mirror, sticky notes, hand wipes, all manner of grocery lists, a pair of slippers, batteries, granola bars, and air freshener.

Heck, that’s not a purse. That’s the beginning of supplies for road trip waiting to happen.

Trust me, take a walk

Allan Gurganus is an accomplished American novelist and although I haven’t read any of his books, I came across a quote of his during a recent detective project.

“Know what Sugar? Stories only happen to people who can tell them.”

It resounded with me, although I’d hate to think that what I perceive as my somewhat intimate relationship with endings and struggles in life happens because I am good at writing about all that malarkey.

I’d like to think there is something more valuable to my living my book of life than that.

I have only to look across the room at “Louis” the kitten sitting perilously on the arm of the chair and batting the swing lid on the garbage can with his front paw to know that he easily is a “cat”-alyst for my column.

And the fact that eventually Louis fell in, amidst the freshly filleted skeletons and guts of six crappie I’d caught while ice fishing (with a license limit of 10 for those who are wondering) means the feline medium just garnered a second unintentional paragraph in this column originally dedicated to stories that happen to people who can tell them.

I meant every word I wrote in last week’s column about gratitude and no regret but I will admit that I’ve recently had unexpected visits from “Mr. Mad” and “Mr. Angry.” Thinking too much about what is behind me opens the dungeon door to these unwelcome beings.

Thankfully I rallied to walk a road less travelled by such dark capes. To clear these harbingers I really did take off walking, so mad at first that I could have decked a rogue bear or buck with my “fist held tight” had one crossed my path. 

Before I knew it four miles and one hour had passed and a quieter mind had returned.

I had suffocated the assassins of peace. They could not keep up. They were dragged to their deaths down a paved road.

That happened days and days ago. Now I’m hooked on the endorphins of the daily hour’s ritual and I put in my four miles “just because” and passing by the dried up skeletons of my arch nemeses cast off in the ditch between here and there and home again.

Of course there’s always a test in frustration and patience waiting for me in the form of a cat when I get back from my walk. 

There are any number of scenarios waiting to ambush me, the first of which is usually a heap of throw rugs that the kitten, high on energy drinks or some such, decided were evil monsters and had attacked and rounded them up in the most inconvenient place—jammed in front of the porch door so that I couldn’t open it. 

Try coaxing a cat through a keyhole to come fetch a rug.

Stories only happen to people who can tell them. Right you are Mr. Gurganus.  Just call me “Sugar.”

Sometimes clouds have silver linings

Did you know that the heart of a woman only weighs about eight ounces?

I didn’t.

It wasn’t until I recently checked ‘Google University’ that I learned the facts.

I was sure mine weighed more like 10 lbs—stone heavy and sinkable.

I’ve been away, caring for that part of me.

Thanks in part to my friend Don (who is wise beyond words and who also knows how to put caring words together) I am back, sitting in front of my keyboard.

Don told me to “just start writing,” which if you’ve noticed I haven’t been doing for a few weeks. The empty page syndrome happens to me sometimes, especially when my book of life falls off the shelf and I go underground to my silent place where I spend time picking up my pages.

Eventually I had to come back to the light when I realized, as Don pointed out through Ralph Waldo Emerson that I, too, do not want to have any “unspent youth” left within me when my time is up.

Time to get back on the horse of life and “ride, baby ride.”

My heart is making a come back to her old self again, though when I run my hand over the space she takes up thumping in my chest, I imagine I can feel the small break lines that have been opened up on her surface.

But these aren’t wounds. They’re channels where new life lessons and gratitude can flow in and take their turn helping with growth.

Thanks to Don’s reflections, I also have added a new book to my reading list—“No Ordinary Moments,” written by Dan Millman. It will be really good stuff.

The first book I read as I was growing up and into a conscious human being was “The Road Less Travelled” by M. Scott Peck. I was 18 years old at the time, the book had just been published and it had a big impact on me.

Peck began the book with the sentence, “Life is difficult.” He went on to explain that once we truly understand and accept this great truth, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

I’ve never forgotten that first read and yet I’ve sometimes forgotten that it is true.

And I’ve more or less tried to live by Peck’s “Road Less Travelled” principles throughout my life, but that doesn’t mean—as I am reminded—that everything along the road is simple to learn or to accept.

Simple is what my new kitten’s view on life is like—and I’m taking notes.  Eat, sleep, take a run up the kitchen curtains and back down again, and then cuff the stuffing out of a toy mouse and then toss it into the owner’s boot when she’s not looking.

What a way to re-focus on the present moment when I put my foot into my boot at 8 a.m. and feel a furry under my toes. Simply a laughable moment (after the squeal.)

This much I know is true for me. Everything happens for a reason and I would not trade one moment of my most recent journey for a different story. I have had the adventure of a lifetime and I loved every minute of it.

And yes Don, bless your heart, life does go on. Stay tuned!