! Shop Until You Surface

It’s the weekend – but you’re feeling low – well, more than low… time, perhaps, for retail therapy… the girls, the boys, go about it differently: with the girls, a sense of purpose: phone your Best Shopping Friend, arrange to meet; for the boys, it has to be covert, set up as accidental, just a diversion on the way to pub or café.. Your best friend senses that you’re low; so gently teases you by dragging off the rail the most inappropriate; that’s easy for the girls; it’s all huge fun, around the serious stuff; for boys, even with your best friend – or perhaps, because he is – the inner world is hedged with image, self-esteem or lack of it.. a trip made best alone? A new verse, now, for The Big Metaphor: is this how Life Really Is? You’re feeling sorry for yourself, the victim of your own life, or that of others; so your best friend who’s always there for you teases you: here, try on this droopy number labelled Sorrow; or here’s this grey one, Misery; this mumsy housecoat which says Given Up; or this public statement, the ashy sackcloth dress marked down - Distressed Despair… or this loose-fitting one in charcoal, labelled Sin... or maybe, go right to the other extreme – here’s this Life and Soul of the Party dress in vivid red? .. The boys come out laughing – empty-handed, or with some trivial purchase for the sake of the ‘right’ bag…maybe he’ll come back later and alone… the assistants raise their eyebrows, sigh with mingled disapproval and relief; a secretive male ritual has been roughly re-enacted. The girls come out eyes shining; this has been total immersion; their past, their history, washed away; inside the crisp new bags, a light weightiness, like spun gold; or a silky something that slides snakily in the bag, a promise of a new life for a new you who is one step nearer to the real you, just waiting to step out… Sunday morning; you awake with the soft contentment of someone who knows who they really are; a little nearer to that elusive self, which this strange Saturday had shown to you a little more, of what you’re not.. to see depression’s black black low as blessing in disguise could be a gift beyond all market price.