Purses and Personalities

“The truth be told,” Patsy Clairmont writes, “ I’ve fallen on stage more than once (the last time it was in front of sixteen thousand people, I might add), and do you know what happened? I got up again.”

And so it is with this blog. Life happens and I lose my discipline, but I’m not giving up.

I’ve heard it said that you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of her purse. Well, a few people sipping dark roasts or lattes became privy to my personality. For my purse, not my brew, spilt all over the floor. Money didn’t roll. Nor did feminine products spill forth (Age “has” its advantages.) What rolled across the aisle, preventing people from getting to their chosen table, were pens – at least a dozen with various ink colors. My personality was exposed: I write. I must have pens. What if the first three I try don’t work? Besides, I am easily bored; I need variety.

My Bible could have thumped to the floor, but I’d already taken it out and was using it. “Don’t break your arm,” I hear my mother say, “from patting yourself on the back.”

Speaking of mothers, there was a day in high school when Mom told me I needed to be careful what I carried in my purse. “You could be embarrassed,” she warned. Indeed! It sounded like someone had already evaluated the contents for me . . . letters to and from classmates, poems about my latest crush. The true me, exposed in living-blush.

More recently, a backpack served as my purse. I hung it over my shoulder while I checked my baggage at the airport. “Oh, no. My I.D. is in my suitcase.”

“You won’t need it,” the clerk assured me.

Right I didn’t need it. That’s why I was publicly frisked. That’s why they swabbed the inside of my pack and emptied it of everything within.

“You’re going to hate yourself,” the full-figured woman in official uniform told me.

The contents of my bag flashed before my imagination. I don’t do drugs. I don’t pack firearms. What could she possibly have found?

She lifted a small card from an outside pocket – my driver’s license – my needed I.D.!

So what’s in your purse? Backpack? Computer? Glove box? Car trunk? Lunch?

If it spilt out, would you be embarrassed? Would your personality come marching out in blush tones? Or would the contents surprise no one? Would someone lightheartedly say, "That's the person I know. I'd expect nothing different than a collection of coffee shop loyalty cards . . . a New Testament . . . a pack of credit cards . . . a complete make-up kit . . . pictures of her husband and children . . . three kinds of gum and a chocolate bar."

The Bible tells us that our mouth speaks from what our heart is full of. What does it say of purses?