Creative writing
The solution to solitude: social shopping
When I moved to Kitimat 15 years ago, I expected rain, snow, short summers and long winters. But it was the shopping that nearly did me in and sent me packing. I call it social shopping.
City folk may question the phrase, but northern residents know the syndrome. It’s a small-town ritual and, like all rituals, loved by some and abhorred by others.Truth to tell, I belonged in the latter camp. I grew up in Vancouver. I loved anonymity. I did not want to converse with my neighbour. I did not need to know their business, at least not over the watermelons. I did not want to buy twinkies under my fitness instructor’s calorie counting gaze; nor see my Grade 10 English students when purchasing trash fiction.
Now, my husband had no qualms. Born and bred in Kitimat, shopping was, and is, his primary social activity. He loved it. We’d make a strange couple. I’d charge ahead in an urgent, please-don’t-interrupt-me way, while he chatted over the onions.
Nor did I expect my attitude to change anytime soon. And then along came Jenny.
Yup, that same creature who deprived me of sleep, turned me into a walking dairy bar and rendered me an unwilling expert on diaper absorbency, disrupted the shopping habits of a lifetime. But, even more surprising, she helped me embrace a fundamental aspect of small-town living. I made a truce with social shopping.
Jenny changed my life in a crazy, mind-blowing sort of way. Socializing—heck, just getting out of the house—proved as complex as an algebraic equation. My network of colleagues disappeared into the land of order, schedules and clean clothes. It seemed an unbridgeable divide. Often I didn’t want people over. Getting us up, dressed and fed at a specific time seemed impossible. To visit required strategic planning reminiscent of a military campaign. Jenny’s baby necessities needed a pick-up truck or, better yet, a freight-sized moving van. Packing took on the strategic magnitude of an Everest expedition—without the Sherpas.
And yet my need to break free of my own four walls, to seek conversation and, on a fundamental level, connect with others, grew. Isolation scared me, but I lacked the energy or initiative to pick up the phone. And, miraculously, between the Pampers and the pablum, my views on social shopping changed.
The neon lights burned bright. Shop hours were long. People wanted to talk. (No more aisle dodging for me—I’d hunt ‘em down!) And I made a discovery. I learned I was not alone. I was not a bubble person in that unfamiliar environment of new motherhood.
And so I’d peer into my fridge determined to find an item, however trivial, the absence of which warranted an immediate shopping trip. “Yeah! We’re out of broccoli!” I’d crow.
Of course, as Jenny grew, life regained a semblance of normality. I showered. I finished a cup of coffee. I went back to work. I went out to dinner. I invited friends over and even saw the occasional movie. But I’ve not quite reverted to type. I still remember that, for a few months, I was grateful for familiar faces. I was grateful that I did not have to plan, invite or organize. Rather, support and camaraderie could be found on aisle two between the baby wipes and the tissues.
So, yeah, I’m a big-city girl transplanted to Kitimat and sometimes I miss the glitz and glamour; heck, the restaurants and clothes of Vancouver. But there are compensations. We small-town residents talk because we care, and we care because we’re acquainted with almost everyone. And this acquaintance, this bond of living in Kitimat, provides kinship. Indeed, I have lost anonymity. I have lost freedom. But I have also gained.
So, I’ve made my truce. Our irrepressible interest irks, but now I know that, when the going gets tough, it is not such a bad thing.
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