Monday, July 22, 2013
Morning Thoughts- A trip to the mall
Yesterday I spent part of the afternoon at one of the malls in Portland. I don't know the name of it but it doesn't matter much which one. They are all very similar. The MALL experience. I felt like a country mouse in the city. I was overwhelmed by all the stimulation.
There are malls in Guadalajara but I don't go to them either. My life is so simple that the mall makes me feel like a time traveler, transported fifty years into the future. It was an assault on all my senses. Loud music everywhere. Lots of smells...... Different textures to feel......Bright lights.... Photos of beautiful young men and women models airbrushed to perfection.....escalators and glassed in elevators......A food court with so many choices, I just wanted to walk away hungry. I couldn't make even the simplest decision. My mind was overcrowded with all the different food signs.
I felt my sense of self slipping away. Who was I in the midst of all that glamour? Did I need to quickly buy something in order to feel whole again? To find the part of me that was lost when I opened those glass double doors? Did my soul decide at that point to go back to the car and wait?
The beauty shop had a huge banner in front saying, Ask not what you can do for your eyelashes but what your eyelashes can do for you. I wondered how many of those young people passing by even knew the reference on that banner. (Was Kennedy shot for this future?) And I also wondered if our thoughts and concerns about our country had diminished to thoughts and concerns about our eyelashes.
The prices were also amazing. Mind-boggling. Twenty one dollars for a simple eyebrow pencil! Fifteen dollars for a small bar of soap!!! But I don't need to go into the prices. Everyone who has ever been at a mall knows about them and possibly has gotten sucked into spending too much money. Those little plastic credit cards make spending easy and painless. Until the bill comes.....
Do other people feel as overwhelmed by modern life as I am feeling? Or am I just old and expendable? That is how I felt there. Old and expendable. Maybe we are all expendable in a consumer society. Our individual unique gifts are not valued. Only our money is valued and how we spend it....
WHAT ARE YOUR EYELASHES DOING FOR YOU??? If your answer is nothing, then you had better go out to the mall right now and buy something to make them start working for you..... Every part of our bodies has to work, hard, in order to keep up with all that spending........
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Well, Pat, we are old. But that does not mean we need to run up any white flags. I actually enjoy going to shopping centers up north. I get a certain sense of mature satisfaction in swimming in the hubris pool. "Nope, don't need that." "Don't want that." "Who on earth would buy that." Knowing full well that I could die tomorrow and never regret for a second that I don't even know what an eyebrow pencil is.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, Thanks for writing and once again, thanks for the laugh. P
DeleteI agree with Steve, much more fun to say, "Uhhh nopen no thanks" To me its like hanging out in Vegas or a golf course, there's the same crazed look on the faces.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. I agree. I haven't spent much time at golf courses or Vegas but I imagine it would be the same.... P
DeleteI'm afraid I go a little overboard with my revulsion when I end up somehow in a mall. They always evoke for me a zombie movie I once saw, where the 'living dead' mill around the post-apocalyptic place aimlessly, riding up and down the escalators while the mall music drones on in the background...
ReplyDeleteHi Stan, Thanks for that image. I may have nightmares tonight. I am glad I didn't see that movie. P
DeleteSorry about the disturbing imagery - I'm sure those scenes were intended as a harsh satire on consumerism in general, and malls in particular. These days I find enough troubling things in everyday real life, and avoid unsettling creepy or violent movies...
DeleteHi Stan, I feel the same way. I went to an end of the world movie with my son and daughter-in-law and I wanted to walk out right after it started. But then I remembered how my grandmother used to feel about things. I didn't want to turn into her. So I stayed and endured..... Thanks for writing. P
DeleteMe3, I have the same response. In Seattle here, I've got malls to the North, to the South, to the East, and I never go to any of them. The once or twice a year I find myself walking the length of one, all I can think to myself is "who NEEDS all this crap?". I don't think of it as being not valued for anything but my money-- I think of it as "all the junk you people are peddling, I have no interest in any of it". It's not that I'd never turn lose from my hard-earned money. I just don't see anybody selling anything worth buying.
ReplyDeleteJimS.
Seattle
HI Jim, Thanks for writing. That is also true for me. p
DeleteGood Morning Pat.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly way I feel, although money can bring temporary comfort at times. I just wants to get away from all of these noises...
Happy to say,I am almost there.
My abrogation to my family is over and done with it.
And I paid dear price for that all through my life.
I always has been a "giver" not an" taker" and what I have found lately is I lost sense of who I am during the process. And it's makes me very sad....
Thank you so much for writing your thought! Pat
Stay well and take great care of yourself.
Your friend from far away....
Thank you far away friend for your honest and thoughtful comment. Thank you for your good wishes too. Your comment hits home for me too as far as giving and not allowing myself to take. It is a lesson I am trying to learn. Allowing myself to be loved..... Thanks, p
DeleteHi Pat:
ReplyDeleteI hate malls of any size or description. I avoid them as it all just too confusing, noisy and I do not like the smells of the food court all mixed in together. I shop locally where I can park the car a couple hundred feet from the door and support the small businesses. They have anything I need and if they don't there is always online shopping from the comforts of home.
P.
Hi Peggy, Thanks for writing. I love shopping on e bay. When my packages come it feels like they are presents. I pretend I didn't have to buy them but they were sent to me by a loving friend. P
DeleteDear, Pat.
ReplyDeleteWe will always find a way, as long as we are alive..
I think, very first step is you must connect through to your heart!
And we must remember we all wants a same thing.
Be well my friend and try not to dwell on the past.
Your friend from far a away.
Thank you friend from far away. P
DeleteHi Pat, Jeanne B here. I too live in Ajijic and love it here. Unfortunately I have to go back to Sacramento, CA; leaving in October, due to medical reasons so need to get my Kaiser Medical Ins back. I am dreading it so much. The malls, the fast food on every corner and the traffic. I will contact you before I leave; maybe we can meet for lunch. Take care, Jeanne
ReplyDeleteHi Jeanne, Yes, for sure, let's get together. I lived in Red Bluff before moving to Ajijic. I know that area. It gets to 115 in the summer. UGH..... Thanks for writing. P
Delete