Sunday, April 17, 2016

Turn, turn , turn ...


cue the music, 

"There is a season ....
 and a time for every purpose 
under heaven".
 I was in the crowd this weekend that turned out 
to party in the parking lot 
of a long shuttered mall.

All the equipment is there,
ready to start demo on Monday.
 Crestwood Mall -
home of some of my most Epic parenting fails!

My oldest son uttered his first 2 word sentence at the counter of Stix, Baer and Fuller...
"charge it"
and my youngest son spent hours one Saturday 
with his head lodged firmly between two wrought iron bars of the railing 
overlooking the Food Court. 

No amount of grease from the nearby fast food venues 
allowed his ears to ease back out through the bars;
THAT would take the Fire Department 
and a welder cutting a bar loose from its mooring.

I'm not sure what was more vivid -
his bilateral ear bruising or my mortification.

Funny how my shopping patterns changed after the mall closed.
I rarely go to a mall now,
just in and out of the Galleria to the Apple store - 
and to freestanding stores,
and then, only for what's needed. 
 
 
 
 All the memories made me sad, actually.

Not that I miss shopping as a recreational event;
my emphasis has shifted away 
from 'things' as a way of determining my worth. 

Maybe Amazon is easier,
maybe we have enough malls in this country
and ways of diverting our common attention away
 from more important concerns ...

the imminent destruction of the mall was just a stand in 
for so many other losses I've felt deeply this week.
 
I know change is the only constant in life;
that doesn't make it easy to accept.
even when you know that transience 
is part of what makes life,
in all its forms,
 so precious.
 

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