A very good friend of mind died recently. She’d been ill for several years and didn’t tell a soul. We were so stunned by her death. I was named executor of her estate. She had three homes, one of which was in London. Another friend and I began to sort through her things.
Nell already knew about the closets. She’d seen them before. Each one was filled with purses, handbags of all descriptions. I’d never particularly noticed that my friend carried wonderful little bags and I’d never been shopping with her. So it was quite a shock to get into her closets.
There were hundreds of purses and every one a beauty. The purses made me very sad and they made me chuckle too. Their utility was minor. There was something so erotic about this private collection of purses. Seeing them, handling them, I wondered about the public and private worlds of my friend. Did her worlds ever mix, appear seamlessly together? Or were they, I suspect, held apart, denied a wholeness. She was often just impenetrable.
More than once as we sorted through these beautiful sensual bags, I said, “Do you see how erotic these things are?” |
