shopping as a cope
Someone told me recently—or did I hear it on a podcast? read it in an article? a substack note? I’m ingesting too much content—that the desire to shop is a transmuted desire for creativity.
The creative impulse twisted by capitalism.
I see truth in that.
Which is to say: I went shopping yesterday.
I wouldn’t go quite as far as the sign I saw in a dressing room, which announced in curvy, seriffed font that Shopping is Cheaper Than Therapy!, but there is just that little je ne said quoi that shopping does. An effervescence. A lightening of the spirit. A rising tide of possibility.
Besides, I need a new look that pairs well with an illegal war, amirite? Not me rearranging furniture on the deck of the Titanic.
If it’s been a while since you’ve been to a mall, or gone shopping out in the world, I recommend it. It’s so much more visceral and tactile than shopping online.
One more thing technology has managed to ruin.
Let me count the ways in which this was a virtuous and patriotic choice:
I’m shopping locally—jobs.
I’m not shopping online—good for the environment.
I’m…I…I said the jobs thing already, right? Well…I’m propping up this economy, dammit! Don’t tell me how evil these corporations are; just let me have this.
Violet received $10 for Christmas, and it has been burning a hole in her pocket. When I picked her up from school today she announced a desire to mosey around some stores. I’d been wanting to check out some new shops in town, and we didn’t have plans, so off we went.
There’s a whole new set of shopfronts by the old mall. We now have Madewell, Free People, Anthropologie, Lululemon, Sephora, and Arhaus clustered across the parking lot from Whole Foods. Boz Angeles for real.
I didn’t really understand the vibe of Arhaus until we went inside, and the scale of the place impressed me right away. The wavy wicker light fixtures, the enormous tables, the organically rounded beige pottery vases that look proportional in this context, but would dominate any room in my small home.
Two different salespeople approached me within two minutes. Then I realized that the stump-looking coffee table I was admiring cost $4,500, and the heinous upholstered loveseat Sylvie was climbing on with her muddy planet rainboots was on sale. 70% off, so only $1,800.
I thought about buying a throw pillow just to have my Pretty Woman moment—me, baseball cap, long-sleeved t-shirt, leggings, two absurdly-attired little girls, I’m not as podunk as I look and feel in this moment!—but instead I waved off Dalton and Twighla and got the heck out of there before Violet could knock over the $2,700 upright log she was climbing on.
But I did have a little moment of personal victory elsewhere: The clothes being sold at the stores actually fit on my body! This is something of a red-letter day for me. Often these stores only carry smaller sizes.
To clarify, this is because brands are expanding their size offerings, not because I have lost any weight, and that is worth celebrating.
I do feel like I’m at a very confusing moment in my life, style-wise. Everything I put on feels too young or too formal. Too matronly, or sporty, or corporate. Which me will I be today?
I gained weight through two pregnancies and a year of cancer treatment and the sudden onset of menopause. I don’t look the way I did the last time I took any stock of my personal style. It’s just…not something I really care about I guess? Or I’ve dissociated from it? I don’t know. I haven’t wanted to wear nice clothes around my small children for years. I haven’t been going anywhere other than the library and school drop-offs, and comfort is a priority whether playing on the floor or sitting in an infusion center.
In general I try to cultivate body neutrality, and gratitude for all the wonderful things my body does for me every day. The beautiful things it makes. The people it birthed. The tumor it destroyed.
But sometimes it’s nice to buy pretty clothes.
And I’m about to go on a trip to DC, to visit cherished friends I haven’t seen much of in years, and I’m afraid to be the sloppy rural mumsy one with no real career who has totally let herself go.
Not that these are those kinds of friends—my friends have always been cooler and more successful than I am and none has ever made me feel bad about it—but I’m projecting my own self-judgment outward, then back at myself through them. A real Uno reverse. I’m forced to look at myself from the outside, through their imagined eyes, and frankly? It’s a embarrassing. I don’t want to show up for a tour of the capitol in sweatpants.
I think I’m having a menopausal identity crisis, compounded by the fact that the jeans for sale once again look the way they did when I was 10. Walking into a store gives me flashbacks to trying on twenty pairs of jeans in a row at Limited Too, Wet Seal, or Aeropastel. I’m not sure which stores are meant for me, and which are cringe for me to shop in. Am I too old for J. Crew? Is this all an effect of being in a mall? It feels very 90s, and I can’t tell if I look like a tryhard or a poser or just mutton dressed as lamb.
I bought sneakers and a pair of corduroys from Anthro.
Violet really wanted me to buy the purple pants—arrived at the brink of a fit, whining but purple is my favorite color. I very nearly caved, but pale purple felt like a pretty niche choice, and maybe freakish when coupled with a child named Violet?, so in the end I went with ivory and….can’t tell if I was being too ambitious. It’s a bold style choice for someone who lives in black joggers 75% of the time.
I’m not sure I’m cool enough to pull off these sneakers, either. But I’ll try.
We went to Barnes and Noble, where Violet threw a fit because she wanted first a $45 Glinda Barbie doll, then a $60 Minnie Mouse toy, then a $34 bracelet, then a $7 chapstick. I can’t live without it, it’s just too sparkly! she wailed as we left the store. You don’t have to buy it just because it’s there, I explained.
I’m still not sure if I should have let her buy the chapstick. It was her money, after all. But she’d talked about wanting a stuffie and we were about to go to the toy store. We were also going to pass a candy store soon, and an arcade with a grabber machine, and I knew she’d be disappointed by a chapstick when faced with all that temptation.
In the end she fell in love with a stuffed cat for $12.95, so I spotted her the extra $3.
I did also learn on my travels in the world that beads are very cool, y’all.
I mean I suspected, based on personal enjoyment, but I didn’t realize quite how many I would see on display in the fancy shops. Bead bracelets, bead purses, bead boxes, bead dresses, beads beads beads. I’m with the trends!
And in Free People I saw a tremendous amount of decorative embroidery on shirts and pants. I must have been channeling the zeitgeist with my recent projects.
I’ve been working my way through my basket of damaged clothing, covering up stains in various inventive ways. Beading, embroidery, needle felting, and now a Swiss darning technique for a knit sweater that I think is cool, and which Luke thinks is too abstract. I’ll show him….
Have I mentioned lately that I am a slob, and can’t seem to make it a week without slobbering coffee or sauce or wine or paint on at least one article of clothing?
Seemed like a good time to get good at hiding the evidence.
