Shopping spree

I used to enjoy shopping. A lot. I used to go shopping. A lot. 

To some extent, it was a social thing. I shopped with my sisters, my cousins, my friends. It was an outing. Out to lunch, out shopping. Up to the outlets in Kittery, Maine. Down to the outlets at the Wrentham Mall. Poking around in interesting shops on The Cape and in places like Newburyport and Portland, Maine. Hitting the fun shops between Harvard Square and Porter Square. 

But I also did plenty of purposeful solo shopping: I need a dress! 

Or after work I deserve something after the day I had shopping. Which is, of course, how I ended up with so many bowls from Crate & Barrel, and all those near-identical periwinkle blue cashmere sweaters.

When I worked downtown, I would regularly "cruise the B", that is, pop in to Filene's Basement to see what was what. Before outlet stores proliferated, the Basement was pretty much it. That and Loehmann's. Both stores late and lamented, although my grocery store is located in what used to be Filene's Basement.

As you get older, though, shopping gets old. At least that's been the experience for me. 

While we always say that "need" is a word that should never enter into a shopper's vocabulary, the truth is, I really don't want much of anything, let alone need it.

I don't work, so I don't need anything to wear to work. 

Even pre-pandemic, I rarely went to events that demanded dressing up, and I have enough dress-up clothing to last a while.

I don't need yet another cute bowl/plate/pitcher from Crate & Barrel or a funky gift store. In fact, I'm in de-accessioning phase now, happy to give stuff a way. (Some of that stuff was acquired when my mother hit her seventies and went into de-accession mode. That stuff I'll probably hang on to for the longest.) That said, my nylon spaghetti server has a couple of bent prongs, so I'm in the market for one of those.

My bottom line is that, except for replacement items and the occasional 'why not' when I come across an interesting sweater or the like, I'm no longer the shopper I once was. And most of my shopping can be taken care of online. 

And yet I'm looking forward to getting back to social shopping excursions, to poking around, to looking at interesting things, to buying a new pair of earrings I'll never wear. And, yes, to picking up yet another bowl. 

When I walk around, I try not to notice all the shops that have gone out of business because it's just so damned depressing. A number of the cute little one-off shops on my neighborhood shopping drag, Charles Street, are no longer in existence. So what it I never stopped in unless I was looking for a gift, but I'll miss looking in the windows. And I do buy a reasonable number of gifts, and an unreasonable number of greeting cards. So I hope that the shops still making a go of it can hang on. And, yes, even with the pandemic, I still go into these shops when I need a card or a gift. Why, later today I'll be heading out to see if the my wonderful local gift shop, Blackstone's, which also has a kitchen wares section, has a spaghetti server for me. That of my wonderful local hardware store, Charles Supply. (I will be quick and double masked.)

But it's those empty store fronts...I want Fastachi, the fancy nut store, to come back. And 20th Century Limited, an antique shop that specialized in funky costume jewelry from the 30's, 40's, and 50's - and where I bought many a gift over the years. 

I can't even remember what used to be in some of those empty store fronts. But I still miss them.

Some of the bigger stores in downtown Boston are gone, too.

Although I did buy underwear there, and occasionally something else or other, I can't exactly say I'm going to miss Lord & Taylor. But I am. And I hate walking by it, especially when the window display was this doozy from a few weeks ago. How bleak is this?

I realize that L&T on Boylston Street was not a pandemic victim, and yet I will always associate its going out of business with this terrible time.

Apparently, though, all is not lost on the brick-and-mortar retail end of things. 

A surge of expected store closings early this year hasn’t materialized after strong holiday sales prompted retailers to hold on to their leases in hopes of a shopping rebound.

“It wasn’t the wave we thought it would be,” said Ryan Mulcunry, a managing director at B. Riley Financial Inc. who advises retailers.

Last year, retailers announced plans to shutter a record 12,200 stores, according to CoStar Group. But some are now reconsidering after larger holiday revenues and ready support from lenders gave them more breathing room, Mulcunry said. 

...But it now makes more sense for some retailers to hold on to leases in preparation for easing pandemic restrictions, according to Mulcunry. Part of the hope is that consumers will return as they tire of online shopping and seek new outfits for when they return to their offices. (Source: Bloomberg)

Although I only half believe it, I find this news quite heartening.

I will never return to my shopping prime. But I am looking forward to the After Times, when we can go out an have a good old-fashioned shopping spree.