It’s odd for me to say, but sometimes I think a little materialism is comforting. I say this after spending the last few days in Ashland, OR where the most artificial thing you’ll find is a premium case of “pepsi natural” made only from real sugar and natural flavors. I found myself wandering down the “cosmetics” aisle at the food co-op. Everyone there is weirdly happy and wears clothing made out of some kind of plant. Anyways, I don’t even wear makeup, let alone like it. But it was good to see something familiar in this unfamiliar place that my family now calls home.
In Boston, I despise shopping. It puts me in a bad mood when I see people glued to their bags on Newbury, isolated in their material world. But a similar thing happened when I was in a small village in France (St. Romain) at age 14. I wanted nothing more than to see the stores and cafes in the near-by city of Beaune. The countryside seemed too isolated for me, and yet now I long to spend a summer in a place like that. I think it’s less an attraction to materialism than it is to things that are familiar when you’re in a completely new place, and feel kind of alone.
They don’t call it retail therapy for nothin, babby!