It’s been over a month since I haven't visited this place, and now my refrigerator is completely empty. My stomach is sick of getting food from restaurants. I make my mind after a
week of struggle, I finally get into my car, and drive to the grocery store.
I
believed I’m a very peaceful and easygoing person most of the time, I almost
can be under the category of being a people pleaser, but in my defense, I just
like and tolerate people, I said people not grocery stores, at least not now! I
pulled my car as close of the store as it can be. At the entrance of Maceys my
eyes automatically lower the saturation of my sight and everything looks opaque, even though
there are plenty of colours, the composition in itself is not visually
appealing for me. Is there something about this place that it just doesn’t suit
me, probably the tacky font choice of the advertisements, or maybe the
simplicity of it. Everything on this place fulfills the mission of
commercializing in the best way the products that the store is selling it.
While I walk through the store, is inevitable for me to not
observe people buying stuff and doing their thing, the slow pace of their steps
make it the journey even more horrorific. Is like putting zombies around it,
but even worse because sometimes those zombies may establish a small
conversation with me. What I mean is that sometimes I know some of the people walking in
the grocery store. I cordially
greet and after a couple of minutes of conversation there is an awkward moment
when both parties have to say good-bye. This good-bye is because of the need to
get stuffs done, and the part that bugs me is when I keep finding this same
person over an over again in the grocery store. There are three options of things
we can do in this situation. Number one, move your head as a sign of, Hey! Is
like saying hi repeated times, and eventually follows another small conversation.
Option number two, simply ignore the other person and keep shopping. Option
number three, avoid that person.
Following this small interaction, I would remembered talking to another friend that also didn’t
like supermarkets, “If I would
have to go to hell, I bet living in a grocery store would be my worst
punishment.” This means that for me, there is some kind of chaos in the boring organization of the
products that are labeled in every rack and make the experience unpleasant. Furthermore, the music that is played kills any author, and as much as I
enjoy jazzy music, this enormous wacky warehouse of consumerism is destroying
all Michael Bubble CD’s and all Jack Johnson songs.
I may confess
that I have laugh of myself many times about this rear feelings that I have
towards such a normal place. And I
haven’t even mentioned the funny smell of a grocery store…
Once upon a time this place was my hiding place, I guess my
antagonist relationship with grocery stores is not out of nothing, but from a
tight bond with this place during my childhood. I used to love going grocery
shopping with my dad. I would enjoy helping him, going to the kids section and
play a little, and later on, going to the bakery and eat lemon pie or crème
brulee. Most of all, I would enjoy accommodating groceries in the car while my
dad was driving home, I would play and create with toilet paper and cereal
boxes, a house or a spaceship. The grocery store was the place in which my
imagination would flow and would create an adventurous and unique universe. When
I was about thirteen years old, I change this place for a movie theater, and
all the experiences that I had in a grocery store would translate to a movie
theatre.
“Because, going for grocery shopping is just like going to a
movie theater.” The great difference is that in Maceys there is only place for
horror and opaque themes. On the other hand, in a movie theater it depends of
my own mood.
This assignment served me as a way to analyze an
uncomfortable relationship with a grocery store. After a couple of years, my
vision changed about doing grocery shopping. It may sound cranky and radical my
description, but for me nothing is that terrible. Although there is still some
tension and avoidance to this specific place in question. Trying to avoid going
to this place is trying to avoid my basic needs, and let the idealize world
that exists in my head make a stop for an hour. This place is a constant
reminder that I’m a human and I have basic needs to cover. The bizarre
relationship with this kind of buildings talks about a restrained of my own
need of not being labeled and let myself walk trough life without restrained.
The feelings that I had in my childhood are proof of a possible reconciliation
with this place.
There is also a period of transition that without previous
meditation I didn’t notice. This transition is when I replace the fantasy and
the joy of doing grocery shopping for according to me, “a cooler place,” is
going to the movie theater. This may indicate that there can be different
stages of love, hate, and indifference to certain places in our life, but they
are still being part of it. After all, I do have to make a list for the
things that I need, because failing in doing so, would make me come back sooner
than I expected to Maceys.
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