The Wallet

It was the last few years of Bill Clinton's presidency, and everybody at my high school had to have a Kate Spade satin wallet.  I don't think they even make satin ones anymore, but they sure did then.  And they were beautiful little jewel toned works of art that rested perfectly in your hand.  Green was popular, and so was grey, but mine was a beautiful cranberry red. You managed to show your wallet off by use of an elaborate ruse, saying you were just rushing out of the house, and you just grabbed your wallet on the way because, my goodness, you were in such a hurry - and of course it didn't have a strap like a purse, so you just HAD to put it top on the table at the Mexican restaurant right next to your iced tea.  You were absolutely out of control if you didn't own one. 

My beautiful wallet and I went to college, and one day I met the girl who lived down the hall.  Her name was Linda.  This struck me as absolutely amazing.  There were teachers named Linda.  There were moms named Linda.  But there certainly weren't members of our generation named Linda.  Yet there she was.  Born in 1982.  I don't remember how this trip was arranged, as we didn't know one another very well, but one weekend Linda and I agreed to take a bus together to a nearby mall.  As we stood waiting, she pulled her wallet out of her backpack to extract her bus pass.  Her wallet was definitely not a beautiful mini sculpture plucked from a glass case at Neiman Marcus.  It was some sort of hideous polyester thing with nauseating green stripes.  My 19 year old mind raced - what was going on with Linda's insanely embarrassing wallet?  What happened at her high school that they didn't shun people who owned such things?!  She went to a fine public school in Greenwich, Connecticut – surely it wasn't abject poverty that caused her to resort to such hideous ways to carry her bus pass.  What her wallet did have, though, was writing in some foreign language.  

I asked - what in the world was up with that.  "It's a Spanish poem," Linda said cheerfully.  "I want to be a Spanish major.  It also has a picture of my brother and sisters."  Linda opened up her wallet and showed me a picture of three little children. It was a typical photo studio family picture from the mid 1970s. The three of them grinned against an orange backdrop.  Linda's siblings were 14, 13, and 10 when she was born – yet there they were in her wallet being cute little kids.  Her loving family beside her hopes and ambitions for the future.  And in an instant, her wallet became more beautiful than mine. 

A few years after college, a law student asked Linda to marry him.  She said yes, but insisted that there would be no engagement ring.  Money was too tight, and it was unnecessary.  Instead she had him sign a pledge that he would love her forever and love any cats or dogs that she brought home.  When he pointed out to her that the document was not going to hold up in court, she merely replied, "We'll see."  They got married on a beautiful day, and her only attendants were all her nieces and nephews wearing whatever they wanted to wear. 

Not long ago, I went to visit her, her husband, the two cats, and the dog.  All the pets were rescue animals, and the three of them only count five ears and two and a half tails.  Linda's home is a collage of interesting objects and memories.  The poster from the State Fair.  The wall hanging from the friend's trip to Guatemala.  The dog and fire hydrant salt and pepper shaker with the dog that looks like her real dog.  And on her fridge was a magnet advertising a small business in St. Louis.  It was my business.  A business that I shuttered after a year and half, when my husband's work got scarce awhile and real life came roaring back.  I threw all the remaining magnets away, I couldn't stand to look at them, but it was good to see that somebody was still proud of me for giving it a shot.  The business may no longer exist, but the magnet was a present from me, and so it remains.  Holding up photographs on her refrigerator. 

Linda's husband has a good job now, but she still doesn't have an engagement ring.  They decided it would be more fun to spend the money on a trip to Croatia, where Linda's grandparents were born.  And so it is with Linda.  She keeps the good stuff, the symbols of love, the reminders of generosity, the photographs of people she loves.  And her life has nothing to do with superficial beauty or someone else's idea of what expensive nonsense it is absolutely necessary to own. 

As for me, I am still using that cranberry red Kate Spade satin wallet. It's over ten years old and really starting to fall apart, but I can't bring myself to buy another one.  The wallet is nothing but a lingering example of catty teen girl silliness, but I carry it around with me every day.  And there are other things I carry around too.  They may not take up space in my purse, but I lug them around, and they weigh me down.  The class I could have aced but didn't, the friend I hurt, the missed opportunity, and that business that didn't work out.  They are all with me, and I am not yet sure how to trade them in for polyester stripes and a picture of my siblings. But last Christmas, my husband and I agreed that we aren't going to exchange gifts, but instead put the money in vacation fund.  We are going to Russia, where some of my great-grandparents were born.  I think that’s a good start.