Rehashing the Handbag

    The perfect handbag has eluded me for a lifetime, and I am still on a quest to find the perfect one. Every time I go into a department store, I am drawn to pretty purses. Sometimes willingly; sometimes not. Even when I resist the urge, a magnetic force pulls me in, and there I go again, searching for a pocketbook that will organize my clutter. I analyze the architecture of each one. I measure compartments for lipstick, note pad, pencil and pen. Fashion is not the primary issue; organization is the focus. But all too often, when sizing-up a handbag, I find that it is too big, too little, too heavy, or that it lacks the indispensable outside pocket for my keys. 

    One day while I evaluated a prospective purchase in a store, a woman across from me, obviously in her own sanctimonious search, made a comment, whereupon we exchanged commiserating dialogue about our handbag pursuits. I revealed to the stranger my mission to find the perfect bag. She confided in me that, without realizing it, she had been doing the same thing. 

    After comparing notes about our failed missions, the stranger, who didn’t seem like a stranger anymore, walked away empty-handed, but on that day, I found the presumptive flawless bag. It was lightweight with partitions and cubbyholes and even boasted of the crucial outside pocket. Happy with my new find, I went home and filled up the compartments with essential nonessentials from my archaic address book to mini flashlight. 

    Unfortunately, as time went on, my new handbag became overcrowded. With an eerie resemblance to the movie Groundhog Day, another hunt ensued and the cycle began all over again. 

Trumpets and Swans and Summers

 

    The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars is mostly about a teenaged Sara and her ten-year-old little brother, Charlie, who is mentally challenged. He sneaks out of the house during the night and becomes lost in the woods. When his absence is discovered the next morning, Sara and everyone in the neighborhood frantically comb the hills and valleys trying to find him. 

    This author beautifully presents Sara's love for her brother, which hits home, since I have five brothers to love, less the one who ascended to eternal summer last year, but all the affection still remains.

A funeral hangs by a thread. Or, the Seinfeld version of a solemn occasion.

    When the service ended, I walked through the church doors and down the front steps, and there stood Samuel (not his real name), waiting for mourners to pass. Samuel is an attractive, fifty-ish guy who sometimes drops in on our Sunday sermons. He is a friend, but technically, he is a member of the congregation, or used to be. Like so many others, he became restless and moved to a different pew in a different church.

    If this had been a normal day and not a solemn one, I would have jokingly asked Samuel, "How's business?" But on this day, I refrained and greeted him with understated fare, ignoring my urge to say something clever about his line of work. This time, I let it slide, for understandable reasons.