SUSAN GLICKMAN is the
author of five collections of poetry, most recently
Running in Prospect Cemetery: New & Selected Poems; a novel,
The Violin Lover; a kid's book,
Bernadette and the Lunch Bunch; and
The Picturesque & The Sublime: A Poetics of the Canadian Landscape.
I was born in 1953, an era of wardrobe decorum. My mother, aunts, and grandmother all had cupboards full of carefully stacked shoes and handbags, each stuffed with tissue paper in its very own box, each box precisely labelled: “black patent sling backs”, “navy leather pumps”, “white sandals (beach)”, “beaded evening bag,” “brown alligator clutch,” and so on. I liked to peek into the boxes and rustle the paper. I liked to snap open the purses and look for stray coins, after-dinner mints in their shiny twist of cellophane, matchbooks from restaurants with snazzy names, hairpins, and bright red lipsticks. I liked to try on the shoes and the lipstick, and wobble across the floor, being a lady.
Those were the days of rules. “No white after labour day” was one; also never wear dark hose with light coloured shoes; and most important of all, always match your shoes and handbag. This last rule has always been a source of enormous frustration for my mother, as she has to transfer items from one purse to another every time she changes her shoes, and often leaves something behind because the new purse is smaller or her destination different. Later she will rummage through three or four different purses to find the relevant article, in a lather of anxiety the whole time.
My life is much simpler, as is my clothing. The reason I can’t find anything in my purse is simpler too: it’s too damn big. I am a small woman, but all my life have schlepped around humungous bags, abusing each until its handles give out or zippers burst, then moving on to the next. Like a Bedouin, I carry everything I need with me: reading glasses, sunglasses, agenda, notebook, a book or two, hairbrush, two lipsticks (one red, one pink: I may not match my bag to my shoes, but I still like pretending I’m a lady), keys (two sets, in case I lose one), dog treats, wallet (it’s as overstuffed as the purse, though not, alas, with money), bus tokens, bus transfers (they make good bookmarks), tissues, asthma puffer, several felt-tipped pens, frequently an apple; occasionally a fermenting apple-core.
Currently I’m hauling around a sturdy black leather bag: a gift from my sister-in-law. It’s not beautiful; it’s not even interesting. But it has two pockets and a zipper compartment on one side and two more pockets on the other, and two big compartments and three small ones on the inside, so it holds a ton of stuff and keeps it better organized than most other hold-alls I’ve held. My sister-in-law calls it a “pocketbook” because she’s from New York, so I call it one too, even though to me a “pocketbook” has always been a paperback. This amuses me, because the main reason my pocketbooks get so beat up is that they’re always full of pocketbooks!
Read more about the Capacious Project here.
To view all the contributions to the project go here.
I think my fave out of the current bunch comes once again from 
