Early this afternoon, I found myself in the dressing room at a
White House : Black Market boutique.
White House : Black Market isn’t a high end boutique, but it’s higher
end than, say Kohl’s. Where I usually
shop. They do things there that don’t necessarily
happen at Kohl’s. They ask you if you
need any help. They learn your
name. They start a dressing room for
you. I was at WHBM because I was
determined to buy myself something nice.
Not REALLY nice, but nice enough to make me feel better about myself.
As I was getting ready to walk into the dressing room with 12
garments that cost more than I pay for rent, my “shopper,” Holly, asked me if
she could get me “a little heel” to try on with my skirts. “What size do you wear?” She asked me.
I looked down at her size 6 shoe and said “a TEN.” Holly came back with the most magnificent
pair of plum-colored peep toes I had ever seen.
She took them out of the box and as she handed them to me, she said “these
will compliment everything you are trying on.”
I looked at the shoes and was immediately overwhelmed with both
guilt and infatuation. I felt guilty
because I coveted that pair of shoes with more desire than I had ever had to
keep myself fed. Everyone knows I love
shoes, but I have no shame wearing flipflops either. But those shoes set the tone for the entire
dressing room visit. I knew I couldn’t
afford to leave with them, so when I sat down and buckled the straps, I was going
to spend the next 15 minutes with them on my feet. I sat for a few minutes, admiring how the
color accentuated the fading tan on my legs.
I noted that 3 ½ inch heels gave a little more dimension to my figure
than my standard 3 inches did. And of
course, I also acknowledged how much sturdier these $300 shoes were than the
$50 pumps I usually buy, due to budget restraints. I knew I couldn’t afford those shoes, but I
also knew they were mine for the next 15 minutes.
With the conservative-but-still-super-sexy strappy heels on, Holly
knocked on the door of my dressing room and asked if she could get me something
in a different size. I whispered through
the slated door “No, everything is perfect.”
But I got the message, so I started trying on the ensembles that would
make my current wardrobe very jealous. First
I tried on a wine-colored chiffon skirt.
Just below the knee. It was
beautiful; but not really my style. As I
took off the skirt, I heard someone ask the girl in the next dressing room “Ashley. How are you doing?” To which Ashley responded with “I tried on
the other size and it worked!” From the
other side of the wall, I heard her “shopper” ask if Ashley needed anything
else in a size ZERO. It was at that
exact moment I reached over my shoulder to zip up the sleeveless, ruched-front
dress in size 10, that I lost my balance in those magical shoes and hit my
cheek on the mirror. Still trying to
save face, I clawed at the wall of the dressing room, until I was reduced to a
twisted heap on the floor of WHBM. Seconds
later, I heard a knock on the door: “Angela?
Can I get you a glass of water?” Uh…”no
thank you, Holly.”
As I picked myself up, I gathered the garments that I had intended
to purchase and reflected back to a late night conversation I had recently had
with a friend who is, quite literally, on the other side of the planet. He asked what I was writing about. I had nothing. So, I
had asked him how his travels were going.
He said “traveling was easier when I was younger.” To which I responded “We would be nothing if
everything we did was easy.” He said, “You
should write about hard places and easy places.” I’m sure neither one of us imagined that I
would relate that to boutique shopping.
But I did. And after I paid
for the two skirts and a beautiful blouse, I walked out of White House : Black
Market. I got in the car, with my bootie. I got back on the highway, still with the “hard
places” on my mind. I had a bruise
taking ownership of the right side of my face from the fall and I just didn’t
see any need to take 101 South home. So,
I stayed on 12 West until it became a two lane road. I drove over the river and drove through Guerneville. As I was driving through the Redwoods, listening
to all the song that make me think and make me smile, I came to the fork in the
road. 16 miles to Bodega Bay or 93 miles
to Fort Bragg?
Immediately, I veered left.
Then there was a stop sign that I totally forgot about at the
junction. I hit the breaks with more
authority than I ever had before. As I
was obeying traffic laws and catching my breath as a result of near collision,
I realized that the Jetta sat more than half way over the stop line. I looked forward, at the redwoods up ahead.
Then I looked to the right. I didn’t
have to think about it for very long. I
cranked the wheel to the right and headed up the coast.
I drove through Jenner.
That wasn’t my destination. The
tourists and the fun arts made me want to stop.
But just as I passed the sign that declared this roadside stand was home
to the “best oysters.” It didn’t give
any explanation, but the “best oysters,” probably deserve a stop. As I was looking for a place to turn around, I heard Stevie Nicks singing about being a “gypsy.” That was when I knew that I had to complete my
journey. I knew that I had to go
further. I couldn’t stop for oysters or
heirloom tomatoes or apple pie. I had to
get to where I was going. Only I didn’t
know where I was going.
So, I just drove. There is
a lot of nothing on CA 1 north. Occasionally,
I’d pass a craft stand or a farm house.
But for the most part, it’s a lonely drive from Jenner to Sea
Ranch. It’s the kind of empty that makes
you grateful for the scenery and 1000 hours’ worth of your musical history on
iTunes. As I approached Sea Ranch, I was
already two hours deep in thoughts about hard places. I had been from the horrifying
scene in the dressing room to living alone for the first time without a friend
in the world. From there I went to the
place I grew up, and often felt as alone as I did when I actually lived by
myself. I thought about college. When I lived in the basement of a three story
townhouse, and I would email my roommates to tell them I was going to be making
dinner. Do the psychology on that. I had
been thinking for hours about all the hard places I had been. So, Sea Ranch seemed like a good time to turn
around, but Gualala was so close. So, I
kept driving.
I drove through Gualala and into Point Arena. I’d finally had enough of my thoughts by
then. I drove down to the pier and
parked. I walked out to the pier that I
used to frequent as a little girl, at the insistence of my dad. When I was young, we would walk out to the
pier and he would tell me, firmly, to stay out of the way of the fishermen. I was always fascinated and intimidated to
walk out on that pier. So much was
happening there. Offloading fish. On loading supplies. There were young men with filthy mouths and
old men missing teeth. But yesterday, it
was a lot quieter than I remembered from my childhood. There were no fishing boats tied up. Nobody was throwing fish into buckets on the
concrete pier. Yesterday, it was only me
and a handful of tourists, wondering what the fuss was about.
I took one last look out at the ocean, the vast charcoal abyss
blanketed with a creamy grey sky that only a native of the Pacific Northwest
could understand. I looked. I took it in.
I got back in the car and made the left out of Pt. Arena down south, Eve
6 out of the speakers. I was already tired
of my thoughts about hard places, and as I retraced my afternoon journey on the
opposite side of the road, I let my imagination take me to an easier place.
By the time I made it to that place in the road that I had earlier
decided to make the sharp right north, I was so tired of myself. I was tired of the guy selling smoked salmon
out of the back of his truck. I was
tired of the kites and trinkets. I was
tired of the fruit and fish stands. I
just wanted to be somewhere easier. I
wanted to be somewhere with no memories; somewhere with no decisions. Then I remembered what I said to my friend,
half a world away, when we talked about hard and easy. I said “People like us don’t choose to live
where it’s easy. If it’s easy, it isn’t
worth living.
-Inner Peas
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