Greetings Dear Ones!

To Prudence’s horror, we heard an advertisement recently that called this season “The Shopping Season.” What??? No it’s NOT!!! How dare they claim for Capitalism this deeply Spiritual Season of Preparation—when we reverently garnish our homes with garish gee-gaws, gawdy ornaments, and crinkled tinsel (“almost as vile as glitter…” huffs Prudence). Then we have a tree slain in our honor that we may bring it indoors and spend the next six weeks (or, if you are like me, the next six months) watching it die and vacuuming evergreen needles out of the rug (Just kidding! Who vacuums??)—All so we can welcome the relatives we already had enough of at Thanksgiving. (As if people returning within a month won’t recognize the place with all the elf statuary, mistletoe, and Jingle Bells.) It’s the season of eye-itching sweaters, odd food pairings (like smoked fish and candy canes), and occasionally gruesome music whose themes seem to center on the fauna of Lapland who, having been mercilessly teased for their sinus issues, then run over and murder the elderly. And all in the name of helping us forget this is essentially a Pagan festival born of Fear of the Dark.

The Truth is, it is more than likely only a HALF-birthday for the Christ Child (for those, like my nephews, who celebrate half-birthdays) since he was almost certainly born during lambing season—which is approximately five months away. Still, who doesn’t want to party in the Dark and celebrate the Return of the Light, especially if it involves beverages made of eggs and indoor shrubbery? (Indoor shrubbery is not actually an intended ingredient…though, after a while, it does turn up in everything from pockets to pancakes, kind of like glitter.) The whole thing, like the year of 2020 itself, seems to be the invention of an imaginative fifth-grader trying to make a story as weird as possible… “Yeah, um… there are going to be some flying deer, and a barn full of animals who talk at midnight, and a pesky elf who causes worn out parents to lose their minds because they were so darn busy putting cloves (Cloves?? When do we ever use cloves any other time of the year?) in their baking that they forgot to move him and now the children are in danger of suspecting there isn’t really a jolly man with carbohydrate issues who is going to stealthily break and enter their home while they are asleep and eat all their cookies…

Yeah…. “I guess we might as well call it the Shopping Season,” says the part of me that isn’t cynical at all.

A young shopper came to see me about a week ago. She had (I’m not kidding) nearly twenty things to try on. “I just brought a few things to start off. I love to shop,” she giggled as she held up her forty-gallon kitchen trash bag full of clothes. “It helps me stay sane. I guess I feel powerless with the Covid thing, you know, so I get to decide what I want,” she said miming the act of clicking a mouse. Apparently, she wanted a whole lot of stuff that wasn’t her size, along with the exact same skirt in every single color available, as well as a lot of past-season bargains that she won’t be wearing until next summer, or maybe January, if Greta Thunberg is correct. She kept asking me if things looked like “her.” I had no idea how to answer. I had only just met her! She was looking directly into two large mirrors but she couldn’t “see” herself. So often, we use other people “seeing us” as a way to see ourselves.

Maybe she was just asking if they looked good on her, which is hard to tell when things don’t fit. I am always loath to answer questions on fashion. (Please, don’t ask the middle-aged woman with animal dung on her shoes what “looks good!”) After all, having gotten off the fashion train in the 1830’s, my own personal “look” is some version of Amish-track-star-in-cowboy-boots. I keep imploring such customers, “Tell me what you want. I want you to be comfortable.” Prudence is more harsh: “We are here to make this fit YOUR whims, not ours. We are not available to follow you everywhere in your life, capering in constant rapture because you chose this cardigan, which really would have looked much nicer in navy blue, buttoned to your throat…” (If you think Prudence is mean, you should have seen her prototype—the nun who taught me in eighth grade.)

Gradually, as she tried on various styles from her bag (we’re back to the young customer now, not the nun from eighth grade), I began think I could see who “she” was—a dear, sweet, very Young soul, in a masquerade ball of “choices.” She was Me, ten, twenty, and thirty years ago. She didn’t have clothing; she had costumes. Like most of us, she was a great variety of people who might be glimpsed differently through the eyes of a date, a boss, a teacher, a lover, or a friend. In our private confessional, behind the dressing room curtain, she was asking me to see her, at least partially, as all these things. Some things made her look pretty; some made her look smart; some made her look sweet; some made her look smoking hot; and some made her look like she was entering renal failure—or at best, like she had dined on raw salad onions at lunch and was going pale and waxy from being forced to breathe her own fumes beneath her mask. None of them looked to me like HER. Watching her shape-shift from powerful to meek and back was like observing a kaleidoscope of femininity. I began to think about women and clothing and Power, wondering, are we Choosing, or hoping to be Chosen? In short, “Which are we, the Shoppers or the Merch?”

How many young women (I know I should say “people,” but in this case I actually mean women) are given the impression that they are supposed to make a nice little package of themselves and hope the Right Buyer “values” them enough to trade whatever blood or treasure is necessary for the pleasure of “keeping her” happily, ever after? And what is it the mystery “buyer” seeks—Autonomy or Loyalty? Self-reliance or Interdependence? Are we supposed to be Strong? Or make them the heroes? Are we supposed to see ourselves as Alone? Or anchored in ourselves by being the center of a web of important connections with others?

These questions and insecurities radiate outwards in all areas of our lives--especially in this, the “Shopping Season.” Who, exactly, are we shopping for? What do we hope will happen as a result of all our Spending?

This time of year, I like to sit in a corner of the barn and try to explain basic economics to the sheep. I tell them that the Christmas tree they ate last year got turned into wool that is going to be made into a Christmas shawl for someone special (if I can get it done on time!) They just nuzzle me, enquiring what happened to all the corn chips. “Are you Shoppers? Or are you Merch?” I ask them. One looks at me and blinks. “We only talk on Christmas Eve,” another whispers out of the side of her cudding mouth.

“Nonsense,” I reply. “I know you talk all year round, to those who are listening.”

They roll their eyes and shrug.

“Ok. We’re Merch,” they burp. “Definitely. All prey animals are.”

“What about Pray Animals?” I ask.

“They have Free Will,” they say with unconcerned nonchalance. “They get to decide.”

The sheep, who know considerably more about Fashion than I do, insisting “there’s no such thing as bad weather; only bad clothing,” hunker down in the straw and help me devise the following Guide to help us during the “Shopping Season.” As you go forth to make your buying decisions, here’s how to recognize whether you are becoming The Shopper or The Merch:

1. Shoppers see themselves Directly, without the help of Middlemen (people)

2. Merch needs other people to see, to praise, to validate, or encourage their image of themselves.

3. Shoppers choose based on how things make them feel, rather than how others think. They buy to share Joy, not to “make someone happy.”

4. Merch hopes, passively, that it will get “chosen,” by choosing “the right thing,” though they haven’t a clue what that is.

5. Shoppers don’t need other people’s opinions because they don’t want to get stuck having to manage energy coming towards them they cannot control or be responsible for.

6. Merch gives to Others management of issues they should handle themselves.

7. Shoppers don’t actually have to buy a damn thing.

8. Merch will purchase anything in order to gain approval

9. Shoppers are not for Sale.

10. Merch will continually bargain itself down in humiliating spirals in the hopes of going home with someone…Anyone…

Merch, according to the sheep, (bless them), will also eat up all your old Christmas trees if you let them, not to mention any stale bread or corn chips you might have lying about. They will wear lumps of wool and sit in draughts and placidly listen to you go on and on about how much you hate shopping, even on-line shopping.

I would definitely write more—as this feels Unfinished—but there is a fragrant Jack Russell at my feet, whom I suspect of being a Shopper. He says there is no Free Will where incontinence is concerned and if I don’t want to have to add “shop for a new carpet” to my list, I shall have to sign off Now. If I have to buy a new carpet immanently, I’m not sure who I will turn into… perhaps someone who never finished her blogs…

Take care my Dear Ones! This is a time of Patience with the Dark. May we give each other the respect, the tolerance, the forgiveness, and the Service that one can never find in a shop. Charity is Price-less.

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy