Hello and Happy Thursday,
I’m happy to see so many more new names and faces on the subscription list. I must tell you that last week’s pep talk/chance to politely suggest things to your husband or your friend’s husband is a rarity around these parts. I mostly mind my own business when it comes to holidays. Take Flag Day, for instance. I have zero opinions.
Anyway, welcome aboard to the newbies and I’ll try to make these little visits worthwhile. And leave me a comment or reply with an email! I love when that happens.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: In Praise of Brenda, the Target Institution
Early this week I stopped by my local Target store to pick up a few things. The store is currently under construction to make it fancier, like the ones in other parts of town. I’m a little bummed about it. I liked my not-fancy, run-of-the-mill, you-can-find-Magnolia-in-here-if-you-look, but we’re-not-making-a-major-thing-of-it kind of Target. I already struggle with spending too much money every time I go in there; I don’t need to be helped along by framed housewares displays or miniature Ulta stores.
One person is excited by the changes, and that is my favorite cashier, Brenda. Brenda has been my Target cashier for over ten years. I think it’s more like fifteen years. We’ve never done the math. But every time I steer my cart into her checkout lane, she says, “you been my regular from forever,” and I nod along, because it’s true. My infant daughter, now thirteen, went through Brenda’s checkout lane in a carseat on many occasions.
I choose Brenda’s lane over self checkout when I only have one thing to buy. I choose her lane over any other cashier. She is my Target institution.
Brenda just came back from a two-month hiatus because she got her hip replaced. She is grateful that she didn’t end up paying much for the procedure, but she’s annoyed that the recovery didn’t allow for rehab. But her mama went through four years of bone cancer with no help, so how could she complain? She’s glad to be back, and boy, those new track lights over the front of the store make everything brighter and happier.
During the height of the pandemic, I wondered about Brenda, if she was doing OK. I was staying out of stores for the most part, and I did a lot of parking lot pickup. She was the reason I started going back inside Target a lot earlier than other stores. I honestly missed her.
With the advent of big box stores, out went the charming ideal of the main street general store, the one where you knew the proprietor, and their kids went to school with yours. There are still glimmers of this little community sometimes, if you look for them. But it takes time, it takes mundane routines and repetition, to acquire this “regular from forever” status.
Repetition in this form is rare nowadays, when people move around for work and other reasons. We spent the first five years of our marriage moving about once a year, twice across the country.
But in the eighteen years I’ve lived in Charlotte, Brenda has been part of my established life here. I wonder if she was there the very first day I went to that Target, in a rental car because my husband was interviewing for a job in the area. I was carrying our third son in a carseat that day — he’s the one that is eighteen now. I stopped there that day to buy a map.
The first few years I was seeing Brenda, I didn’t realize we were beginning over a decade of relationship. I was just trying to get through the checkout lane without a disaster occurring, given the ages of my children. But surprises still happen; people keep going to work; people keep needing to buy things. The marketplace provides us with opportunities to encounter one another again and again, if we are persistent, on both sides of the counter.
For the Anglophiles
Over the last few years, I’ve tried to keep an eye on what is happening with the famous Eagle & Child pub in Oxford, as well as the Lamb & Flag across the street. These are important places to the Oxford Christian writers’ circle known as the Inklings.
As proof positive that we pick our battles as parents, here is a picture of our youngest son sitting in the Eagle & Child whilst wearing a narwhal hat. He broke his arm right before this trip, so we basically let him do whatever he wanted the whole time.1
Reads & Listens of the Week
Here’s a disturbing thought: Facebook has now spun so far out of control that even they can’t trace how they’re using your information.
Hannah Anderson is about my age, and I could echo much of what she says here: Confessions of a Past Culture Warrior. “It’s one thing to advocate for and defend our principles in the common square; it’s another thing entirely to enjoy the fight. And too many of us love the battle. We delight in the pillaging and destruction of our ideological enemies. We love the war because of the rush of righteousness that accompanies it.”
Here’s a great article from Alan Noble: Friendship and Belonging in Middle Age. “I’m skeptical anyone over age 35 has close friends. That’s an exaggeration, but I’m certainly convinced there’s a dead zone for friendship between ages 35 and 50. It’s difficult to have good friends in middle age. Far more difficult than it should be, especially for men.”
This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it. — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
We did not let him wear the narwhal hat in the houses of Parliament.