As a writer, one always has a roving eye for a place that could be suitable to peacefully write. I have a running list in my phone of locations for those days everything in my condo annoys me (what is that clicking noise? Goddamn it, what is dripping!?) and it’s time to move writing locations. I found the Starbucks in the Macy’s at the mall by my condo when I was there on a mission to get a blazer for a speaking engagement. I breezed by the small satellite cafe with a slight recognition that it had writing potential, but did not remember it until today when I returned to sit at the slightly sticky table facing the mall’s second floor to write.
The environment is perfect. The constant droning din of the mall people’s conversation is like a sound blanket, and the Starbucks blender purrs like a $1000 Miele vacuum. The only music pipes in from the Macy’s overhead speaker and it is a soft rock station playing just quietly enough that you can tell it’s Belinda Carlisle post Go Gos, but not enough that it trips you up writing the same sentence over and over again. The coffee shop I used to work at had turned into air traffic control at Christmas and their espresso machine screeched like a bad Roto-Rooter. People there had decided this was home away from home, and some real ass hat had set up a multi-screen work station, manning his Zoom call like Tom Cruise in AI but louder and far uglier. This is easily the same guy who parks the supermarket cart on the cement barrier, ten feet from where it actually belongs because he has to get to his Krav Maga class.
The Fox Hills mall where this Macy’s Starbucks is housed is middle class. It may try to look higher class, but it’s not. I know because I grew up with lower middle class malls, and I feel a kinship here with the clientele. I watch from the gaping mouth of the Macy’s entrance as people gather during the day to buy corn dogs, sneakers and get their brows tinted. I watch the salespeople pick their cuticles at kiosks selling mugs branded with the face of grandma. What a microcosm of society! I don’t know why that strikes me as so profound but I usually breeze in and out of the mall with purpose. I don’t sit and people watch. This mall is also known as the “gangster mall” and don’t be all upset at me for saying that. I didn’t make it up. If there are occasional shootings here, I assume security just hides somewhere till its over because I have seen four women walk through the Macy’s entrance sensors and keep right on walking with sirens and blinking red. So, either the machines are broken, or this Macy’s is the hot ticket for theft. What do I know? I’m just a writer sitting in a perfect climate under a blanket of modulated sound at the mall writing this column.
I think back to malls of my childhood…We had one mall in Rhode Island and it was where we would gather as teens to walk with our slumpy shoulders and raging hormones to get away from the stark oppression of home life. We would debut our new hair or our bling to other awkward giggly teens and occasionally run into our drug dealer friend which felt weird because we were only supposed to see him in the back of a dark room in his mother’s apartment over the supermarket they owned. Surely not the mall!
It’s also ironic that I am creating content in a Macy’s. Back in 2016, when I had been a book coach for a year and sober for two, I went to a branding workshop. We had to fill out a sheet that asked “What do you like?” I drew a complete blank. What do I like? I watched all the other participants wildly scribbling away, turning the paper when they ran out of room and flipping the sheet over to write more. I felt a little sick. How can I be such an empty vessel of what I like? When it came time for me to share, after the lady next to me gave a long list of colors, flowers, patterns and textures, all I could say was “Macy’s.” “Oh great!” said the facilitator in her Australian accent. “Why?” I paused. “Because I don’t need to go anywhere else.” It was true. When I needed an outfit (and this is still the case 6 years later) for an event, I never wanted to go to four stores. I could get it all at Macy’s -shoes, bra, dress, bag. One stop. I’d even pay more to not go anywhere else. I should be a fucking Macy’s spokeswoman.
So here I am, writing in a Macy’s now which is really funny to me, maybe not to you, but what would really be fantastic is if I met my soul mate here. Can you imagine literally getting everything I need at Macy’s? I need to think that through next time so I wear something better than a puffer jacket and mismatched socks.
Why I Write:
Some of us have brains that work a certain way. The more I write, the smarter I get. I use words like rhetorical on Bumble chats and am impressed when that guy asks me for coffee. You can truly suss out people by if they write or not because you know how they think. I have learned conversationally my best approach to most questions is yes or no. When I am talking too much, my brain is often screaming, why am I talking?? But writing, no one can shut me up (well, I guess my editor can.) If you are not writing, but reading this glorious article, then good on you. Reading makes you smarter too, and in my book, that’s a win.
What Has Confounded Me This Week:
Aging. I am not going to pretend to have a young audience so I know you all feel me, but the truth is, we feel it at every decade. We are slowly dying. I know that is really fucking morbid but it’s true, and you can take that info and go do all the stuff you are whining about, or you can just bloat and get creaky and suffer. I sometimes lie in bed playing out work outs in my head I won’t do, and other times I am up like a weekend warrior on the treadmill at 5:30AM. But either way, I am aging and I can be wise and wonderful or old and miserable and I choose the former.
Have a wonderful week, and if no one has told you they love you, I do.
Kim - I appreciate your valuation of my comments and self-expression. One has to be so careful these days with p.c. comments replying to anyone that it diminishes the intent of the message. What ever happened to the actual meaning of "free speech" done without insulting anyone? It even happens on a personal level when reaching out to another person, whether single, separated, divorced, or "other". Everyone is so judgemental about what "category" you are even though it is not their business.
We all need a special comfort or quiet zone that allows our thoughts to flow and be inspired. Finding and keeping it is the challenge since it seems every space ends up being occupied after initial discovery. Why is writing becoming a lost art form when it is an essential element for communication when we can't verbalize our thoughts directly? Does it magically change when put into print or digital form from what we are thinking when keystrokes are entered? Why is the effort to write and express oneself often seen as self-indulgent by others when we are just trying to share thoughts and ideas about what we believe, represent, or actually know? Does it really fall on deaf or just indifferent ears (or eyes)? The mysteries that exist without clues .......