Indoor American malls have changed a bit since my childhood. Probably the height of the mall experience was 1985; some lucky visitors may have even gotten to hear up and coming pop acts like Tiffany. Many things remain unchanged. My family and I spent a lot of time at malls through the years. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and three malls in particular helped shape my growing consciousness: Eastwood Mall, Century Plaza, and Brookwood Village. I have omitted Roebuck Shopping City, minutes from my childhood home, because it was not an indoor mall. I have also omitted that great behemoth, Riverchase Galleria, because we didn’t really go there very often. In some ways, the malls became interchangeably “the mall.”
The mall of yesterday was everywhere and nowhere, depending on who you were and who accompanied you on that visit. Mostly, I really milled about the mall by myself, even at an early age. My mother tended to have an intense, internal shopping experience that did not really include me; she would eventually tire, hours later, and appear when the trip was over and she was ready to leave. The three malls exist in multiple mental snapshots for me. Eastwood Mall no longer exists and a Wal-Mart now stands in its place, despite a mid-90’s makeover. I remember the very cool Books-a-Million at Eastwood Mall and the wonderful “Scholar’s Corner” section. Rows and rows of hardback classics stood on oak shelves and they even had classical music piped in, just for that section. You could read Shakespeare while looking at a bust of Shakespeare while sitting in an enormous leather chair.
The mall offered me illusions of everything. I could improve my appearance with clothes, a new hairstyle, or makeup. I could occupy myself reading at a bookstore or eating at a restaurant. I could window shop. But there was little chance of making a new friend or finding a date, or at least I didn’t believe there could be. The mall could meet temporary physical needs, but I always left with less money. Sometimes I would run into people I knew from high school, many of them had jobs at the mall. The encounters did not thrill me; school did not usually go well for me.
After a drastic weight loss in high school, I learned how shopping at the mall was different for a non-plus size person. The new clothing options were fun, but I really was no happier. Awful things had happened in my life and I could not enjoy the achievement of thinness as I would have expected. The mall became sort of a therapy as I walked constantly and bought beautiful clothes. It was almost a place to hide while out in public. You could spend hours by yourself aimlessly.
Today, I walk about the mall in much better circumstances. I do not need to go there because I have nowhere else to go. I can even buy more than I ever could have back when I was a teenager. I find myself unable to spend over an hour there without a feeling of sadness. I am in a different city and in a very different mall, yet I end up feeling I am nowhere all over again.