Fumbling for lipstick at a stoplight, I panic. To know why, you need to return to the street where I grew up--a main artery to high school. As a child, I watched high schoolers floating past my house in clouds of nonchalance.

There were the Pescatello twins, Anita and Margie, like slender Modigliani models, in chin-length brown hair, hoop earrings and leather jackets. Cherubic blond Beth Taxter, in her round-collar white shirt. Marcia Brown, in glasses, smacking gum rhymically. They babysat all the neighborhood kids and we discussed them as if visited by goddesses.

Strolling by, they clutched notebooks and books—status symbols to one just learning to read. They had soft leather purses dangling over shoulders, full of what? Pale frosted lipsticks of the 60s? Contraband like cigarettes? A comb? What else? What mattered was the total effect: They had accessories.

When I got my first three-ring binder, bulky in my fourth-grader arms, I had arrived. Didn’t I finally look like a self-assured high school girl? Or at least Patty Duke’s British cousin from The Patty Duke Show?

My wardrobe reflected the times: I had electric-striped turtlenecks, Danskin tights, a jumper with a wide red hip-hugger belt. Was it my mother who also suggested a purse? A small black bag with white saddle-stitching, it had a gold top clasp and matching gold hounds-tooth chain shoulder strap.

Excitedly cutting off the tabs, and pulling out tissue-paper inside, I was unprepared for the pronouncement to come. It was one of those moments like those described by Tibetan Buddhists where their masters unexpectedly spring enlightenment on them.

“This is where you keep your lipstick and powder,” my mother said.

The words burned into my X chromosomes. Lipstick and powder. Although I wouldn’t purchase a pale pink lipstick until two years later, I’d been duly inducted. I studied my purse’s clean suede interior and nodded.

Back at the traffic light, I can’t believe I’ve left my lipstick in another purse. I feel like I am driving in my underwear. I recall everything in my makeup bag with longing…eye pencil, concealer, powder, lip pencil and lip gloss. Still inspired by those purse-packin’ babysitters, I usually travel well equipped. And yet what do I use when driving, or dashing into a women’s room? My mother’s mantra returns.

Ann Cefola is a poet (www.anncefola.com) and creative strategist (www.jumpstartnow.net).