 | By Lauren Kelley Editorial board member |
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I didn’t spend much time in upscale department stores as a kid. There were plenty of them in Dallas, where I grew up, but we were more of a J.C. Penney family. |
That’s because Sarah, an editor at Lilith Magazine, also happens to be one of my dearest friends (something my colleague Eleanor Barkhorn did not know when she assigned her this piece). And over the years I’ve gotten to enjoy the philosophy of spending time together that Sarah imbibed from her mother and her grandmother while on outings to places like Lord & Taylor. |
“They were teaching me how to turn a necessity, like shoes for a cousin’s wedding, into a nice — my grandma always italicized the word when speaking — day together, a lesson I’d apply to excursions with friends, and later my own family,” Sarah writes. “Add lunch, or a snack. Linger, gossip and enjoy, and by the end it won’t matter so much if you find the shoes you wanted.” |
One such day stands out in my memory. It was 2013, and I was happily engaged but deeply ambivalent about the trappings of a traditional wedding. I had especially been dreading — and putting off — shopping for a dress. The thought of going to a bridal salon, with all the tulle and the weeping and the fuss, gave me heart palpitations. |
Sarah knew what to do: She took me out for an afternoon of wandering around Manhattan and browsing, taking the pressure off by treating it like many other nice days we’d spent together. I tried on cocktail dresses and evening gowns. We laughed and took pictures, gossiped and chatted, refueled with coffee and pastries. Eventually we found ourselves at Saks, and there it was: a white and gold strapless sheath dress that felt special without being princessy. It fit. It was very me. It was on sale. Done. |
It’s been harder to have these sorts of meandering days with friends lately. As Sarah notes: “the relentless march of capitalism, now accelerated by the pandemic, has robbed us of spaces to be together and to pass time slowly.” |
I realize it’s absurd to wax poetic about a shopping trip, amid all that the world has lost. But I think we’re allowed to grieve the tiny stuff, alongside all the impossibly big stuff — especially when those things keep us connected to the ones we love. |
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