I went to Target in Brooklyn today, which, if you know me, is kind of unusual. What happened was I was walking down the street and I saw a girl with a really awesome yoga-mat-bag. So I went up to her and asked her where she got it, and she told me she got it at Target. I was like,There's a Target in New York??? Indeed, there is. And since I have been in search for the perfect yoga-mat-bag, I took a day trip to Brooklyn.
The trip there was kind of a disaster. First, I decided to take the N from Canal Street, so I went to Canal Street, which is kind of like walking into an arm-pit. Then I discovered that the N, that I had just walked 15 blocks to get to, was running local, and I could have just gotten it right in front of my building. Okay. Patience is a virtue. It's an adventure in search of a yoga-mat-bag, after all. So I got on the N that was making all the local stops and, by the looks of it, was being pushed manually along the tracks- I mean, it couldn't have been going any slower. Let's not forget that I was wearing shorts and a tank top, because it's hot enough to die outside, but inside the train it was Siberia, and I was soon trembling while sticking to the blue plastic seat that didn't get the memo that it was summer. Awesome. But then, I finally got to Atlantic-Pacific stop, one of the most horrible subway stations in New York- second only to Times Square, hopped off the ice-train-pulled-by-a-turtle, and was soon standing inside Target.
In my grouchy New York mood, I wasn't expecting to find what was waiting for me at that Target. As I walked past the giant Dorito bags and $5.00 jeans, an unexpected rush of memories bubbled up all around me. I saw myself at 7, running around with my brother looking for Twix bars and horror books on one of our many family vacations in the U.S. Let me explain: My parents liked to pick a country for us to go to over the summer, and then they'd rent a car, and we'd drive around rather aimlessly for a month, seeing the side of things "regular tourists didn't see". Several times, it was the United States, and we'd sleep at Holiday Inn's and stop by every Target and Wal-mart in sight, shopping for the good old American treats, be it in Oklahoma or Texas or Illinois.
I hadn't been inside a Target in a long time, but as I walked around today, it was instantly familiar. The long summers driving around with my family, usually in a mini-van, eating gas-station hot-dogs, looking out into the long roads, which always all looked the same to me, waiting to find the next Target so we could stop and run around looking for candy.
It can be really overwhelming to walk in somewhere that's filled with memories we left behind years ago and can't get back anymore, and soon enough I found myself trying on an outfit I would never buy just so I could sit in the dressing room for a few minutes and take it all in.
As I sat there in an orange polyester shirt and green shorts with sunflowers on them, I realized that what I was experiencing was a feeling of longing. Longing for a time when the four of us spent months on end together in a car, fighting and singing and eating until we couldn't take each other anymore. A time when my brother was simultaneously my best friend and the most annoying person in the world. A time when all I could think of was buying Diane Hoh's next horror book and then getting to a hotel where I could watch Nickelodeon.
Like so many childhood longings, this one was no different: I was longing for a time when things were simpler. I finally got out of the dressing room- and out of those scary clothes- and faced the store with all its ghosts, hoping I might find pieces of my childhood waiting for me around the corner.
It was weird- I was tall enough to reach the things I had to climb on my brother to try to get to before. And movies cost $20 more than they used to (they were also DVD's rather than VCR's...) Target was still Target, though. It was just a store.
What I started to realize was that Little Larissa and Simpler Times weren't hiding behind the plastic wine glasses, they were inside me. Target had just woken them up for me, reminded me of a few details I had forgotten, but their home was in me. It struck me that innocence and knowledge can live within us without canceling each other out, for our 7-year-old selves did not cease to exist when we got older. We added layers, but we still have the core. It seems rather obvious, but I, at least, tend to forget that my Inner Child didn't stay behind in the places where the memories were built- she's still inside me, and who I am now was built from her, not despite her.
They didn't have the yoga-mat-bags, by the way. So I bought a fairy costume for my cousin's daughter (maybe I was buying it for Little Larissa, but let's say I was buying it for my cousin's daughter). As I walked out of Target, I noticed there was a Chuck E. Cheese in the same building. Another day, maybe. Enough memories for one day, I thought, as I smiled, got back into the ice-train, and returned to my life as a 24-year-old in hectic grown-up Manhattan, feeling just a little bit closer to Simpler Times.
Little Larissa
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