Mallrats

Yesterday after lunch, J and I walked at the Natick Mall. It was pouring rain all day, and lots of other folks (literally full parking lots of other folks) had the same idea.

I find mall-walking oddly relaxing, even when there are throngs of other folks walking and shopping. I grew up in the Midwest, the heart of mall country, in the 1980s, the heyday of mall culture. In the GenX ‘80s, hanging out at the mall was an essential part of the Midwestern teen experience. Your mom would drop you off, and you’d wander with your friends in semi-feral packs of mallrats.

Nowadays, J and I have more in common with the retirees our teenage selves saw walking brisk laps around the mall: after all, yesterday we went to the mall to get our daily steps, not to do any actual shopping (although we did restock our Laderach stash while we were there).

Walking around a bustling mall is not unlike walking down a busy city street. There are store displays to ogle, passersby to observe, and the white noise of background conversations you catch only snippets of . (On Friday, after J and I had lunch at Frank Pepe’s, we strolled the shops at the Chestnut Hill Mall, where one keen-eyed kid exclaimed to his harried mother, “Hey, they have pizza!”)

Shopping malls are manifestations of consumer culture, but they are also sites of actual culture: that is, the coming together of all sorts of people in a shared space. Where else can you spend a Saturday afternoon walking alongside herds of teenagers, parents shepherding fussy children, couples holding hands, and all manner of folks looking to get out of the rain?