The Clearance Sale: how I came to make space for me
I call myself fulfilled. I am also filled full, with things.
I pray to the gods of consumption. Dear Old Navy, Target and Amazon Prime, keep me on top of consuming, and guide me to be more worthy, perhaps of Hermes, Gucci and, his holiness Maserati.
It’s all about progress, right?
How did this happen? How did I become a woman who was stuffing myself with stuff?
I am in the middle of a binge shop at TJ Max. Suddenly, I feel a stirring coming from somewhere in me that I am not acquainted with. Is this labor pain? Pancreatitis? Heart attack? I am felled. Knocked down, smack dab in the middle of the clearance aisle.
I lose my grasp on reality. I grab the sale sign trying to regain my focus. Clearance the sign reads or is it Clearout? In my effort to save myself I try to crawl to the checkout counter. But I can’t.
They want my attention now. I focus in. It is my grandmothers.
Yes, my long dead Grammies have been known to make appearances in my dreams and in my mind. They are my guides, my touchpoints to sanity. They often set me straight regarding my values and behavior.
This time they seem to have camped inside of me. I mean literally, in my belly. One is lighting an oil lamp and the other one is dancing as she munches a twice-cooked biscotti.
I know what you are thinking. I should hydrate more when I shop.
My Grammy Dorothy turns up the glow of the oil lamp inside my gut. It illuminates a golden wrinkled hand and two cataract-clouded eyes that beam up and into me. “Did you know you had a room inside here sweetheart?”
Grammy Annie grumbles as she stacks unopened boxes from Zappos. “We wanted to tidy up a bit in here.”
“Where is in here?” I ask.
And then they tell me this.
They say I have an inner sanctum within me.
They say they are dismayed because I use my inner sanctum as a dumpster for junk. They say I must keep my inside space sacred for things like love and possibility. Grammies say that I need to stop hoarding crap and make more room for….me.
My grammies tell me that I have an interiority of bliss to tap into. “You don’t need more things.”
What a stunning discovery! I have an interiority of bliss inside of me?
“Yes, but we have to make room for you first,” they say.
I start to cry on the stained TJ carpet. I feel confused. Disoriented.
It is the feeling of rescue.
I decide to give over to this.
Grammy Annie starts to dance again. Grammy Dorothy shines the oil lamp on her as a spotlight. I notice she wears a t-shirt that says, “You are more than that new mascara.”
Grammy Dorothy now lights a pot-bellied stove. I feel the heat expand in me. I open my mouth and out bellows smoke signals that float above the many store departments. They spell, “GIRL, YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR POSSESSIONS “
This makes me laugh.
I pull myself up from the floor. I walk towards the exit.
I feel the undulating of my Grammies within my lit-up belly altar.
They are chanting. “Do you. Do you.”
I am saved.
On my way out the door, I turn to the cashier and sing: “There are hands to hold, flowers to smell and skies to wonder by.”
The cashier smiles at my folly. “Thank you for shopping at TJ Max,” she replies.
