Proustian purses...When I used to have lots of purses they would get full of things and these things would recollect to me times past. They were Proustian purses. Especially when I used to pick up just about every object that might fit in a purse and stick in and then when the purse was full, put it in the bottom of my closet for a year or two.

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When I would go back to the purse the things that I would find in it would do as Proust described...They were like vessels that contained past moments. Full of letters (no one writes letters anymore), ticket stubs, pieces of glass, bazooka joe gum (my favorite), rocks, church bulletins, religious pamphlets, shells, sometimes even wrapped up bits of food that probably seemed transportable at the time. The makeup was always the most evocative of the past moment. Lipsticks I'd worn at different moments in their life had a small and a slight taste much like the madeline did for Proust. My coat pockets sometimes served the same function. My freshman roomate remembers taking psychadelics, wearing my trench coat and then being amazed at the many things in the pockets: packets of swiss miss hot chocolate powder, 10 flyers for the ice capades (the Smurf ice capades...I think I was planning on making a collage), $5, a xerox of some poem, etc.

I think I started somewhere in my '20's to drown in stuff. I am of course still mildly drowning in stuff. But I learned to throw things away...sort of. I am less nostalgic than I was also, I think.

But I still like the idea of an object as a vessel containing a past moment.