Shopping Guernica

In today's (Nov. 30, 2008) New York Times is an article titled, "A Shopping Guernica Captures the Moment," by Peter Goodman. Goodman calls the Wal-Mart temp trampled to death in the early morning hours of Black Friday by 200 frantic shoppers a tragedy. A man dying in the entry of a Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving is a tragedy and a powerful symbol.

I've never been a shopper in general and I've never been a Black Friday shopper, so I don't know shopping as a contact sport first hand. Having worked as a public school teacher for 22 years, I've never had much discretionary income to shop or to go into debt. And I've never been drawn to getting up at 4:30 a.m. for any reason, let alone to go shopping. But I've been told repeatedly that the economy doesn't need too many like me.

Money, like blood in the body, must circulate for the economy to be healthy. In the nation's current circumstances, money is stagnant. Wages, in real terms, have fallen over the last eight years. Pensions, turned into 401K plans, have relinquished over half their value in the Wall Street meltdown. Jobs have been outsourced to countries with much cheaper labor and lower standards of living. Personally, I just left the workforce and with my savings hemorrhaging and 12 years until I can collect my state pension (which probably won't be there in 12 years anyway), I'm really worried. How do I start again? And where can I get a job, or create a job, that will earn me a living and can't be outsourced to India?

But I'd like to know more about that Valley Stream Wal-Mart temp. Who was he? How old was he?What were the circumstances that placed him at 5 a.m. trying to "police an unruly crowd worried about missing out," as Goodman says. Was he recently retired? Was he laid off? Outsourced? What was the state of his retirement savings?

And to be trampled by shoppers. Who were the people that walked on his back and legs as he fell to the tiled floor? Were they laid off? Had they been outsourced? What were the circumstances that placed them at 5 a.m. stepping on a human being's neck and shoulders to get 50 percent off an MP3 player? Were they like me?

I think that where we find ourselves this holiday season-as consumers, as workers, and as people who traditionally acknowledge our loved ones with gifts--is faced with an opportunity to wake up and transform what it means to express our best selves in a country that is in financial cardiac arrest. Surely there is another way to express our love than a frantic storming of the doors at 5 a.m.

The kind of desperation that drove those shoppers through the Wal-Mart doors to grind their heels through a temporary worker's blue vest needs to be confronted for the monster that it is. Year after year people have paid lip-service to dismay at the commercialization of Christmas. The death of the Wal-Mart temp is a powerful message that it is time to do things differently--during this Christmas season and going forward.

I had to look up the word 'guernica' from the title of the article. Guernica is a painting by Picasso that depicts the devastation of war on citizens. Shopping as a war with devastating effects on citizens. Huh.

Welcome

I'm 53 years old and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. A dilemma. I'm pulled between wanting and needing a job and my fear of and pull to create a Living. Oh so Baby Boomer, eh?

Welcome to Dancing Through Life!

I've joined the 12 million bloggers on the Web because I've been writing in school--a master's degree in writing and journalism courses post masters--for years now and I still haven't been able to write what I want to write about. Here I will give myself assignments. Right now I envision this as being a place for reviewing books, reporting on women's health issues, Nia, music, inspiration, and whatever else comes up. A column of sorts.

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