how the day after the day after christmas yields a resolution

I have been trying my best to avoid Target these days.  I haven’t gone full stop not going there, but considering it was once a weekly routine now reduced to monthly or even bi-monthly, I think there is progress.  I did go today, however.  I went mostly because it is the second day after Christmas.  So I knew there would be orange stickers and Christmas tree lights on sale.

I was right.  I did have a few basic household supplies I decided I had to get while I was there… but the rest of my purchase was complete surrender to day after day after Christmas clearance.  So I got my stash of twinkly lights.  Then I wandered the rest of the clearance aisles, certain something would catch my eye.  A bargain that was just too good to pass up.  Only… I don’t need wrapping paper, as I’m still overstocked from the post-holiday clearance eight years ago.  I don’t need ornaments.  I certainly don’t need candy.  And as I talked myself out of this item and that, so mindlessly disarranged in piles, I thought how very sad it was that only two days later Christmas was so cheap and mindlessly disarranged.

But the victory comes in getting things for less… so who cares if the veneer of gratitude and happiness of presence is diluted with the multiplication of a percent?  That is happiness, isn’t it?  The whole pay less for more… even if it is just more cheap crap?

My search for a good deal doesn’t come out of nowhere.  I am the child of a coupon master.  I hear there is some game show now, but my mother was the champion long before any reality show producer had the concept.  Only… I also have the fallout of growing up with her in that I have a desire to buy stuff just because I can – in that moment.  And if it is on sale, well then so much the better.  Who cares if I really need it?  Or if it is a decent product?  Or if I am paying what it is worth… what the person who made it is worth?

I could debate this a long while – the whole cheapening of mass manufacturing and driving down of costs by Wal(hell)mart and Target in the last decade.  And, certainly anyone who knows me knows my sentiments on the matter… but as I got home and found myself reading post after post after post on Facebook about people going to Higgins Armory just before it closes, I found myself contemplating our priorities on spending.  Or… thinking about spending.

It is a question that frequently circles through my brain.  How do you encourage people to buy something you make?  People who live in your neighborhood, but aren’t just buying it as your friend.  I’ve debated this as a theater producer and more recently as an independent writer.  But I’ve also worked in museums where I’ve been part of conversations about why this time of year is busy and why this time of year is dead, why we need to push memberships, why we need to have admission incentives or a special event or twenty.  

Of course it would be lovely if none of that mattered and culture could continue just for culture’s sake.  But we don’t take kindly to socialism and directing public tax dollars to frou frou things like arts and culture… so we have to depend on the way the paying public wind blows.

And yet… we increasingly want that stuff for free or at least less.  Less than it’s worth.

Just like 50% off Christmas tree lights.

But yes.  The economy is hard.  Some people have kids.  Choices have to be made how to spend money.  Choices have to be made.  Art is not a priority when it is a question of school supplies or a new coat or dinner.  Or a car payment.  Or an oil bill.

And yet… if we weren’t so eager to get that bargain the day after Christmas or at McDonald’s or for the free iPhone that is so not free… might we actually be spending less?  Indeed… maybe spending less time?

Time that could be spent reading a book or going to a play or a concert or an opening of a local artist?  Presence in those events is worth every penny of the cover charge.  Because you are there in the art… and because the artist can see you in the audience and feel the validation of the creativity.

But in truth, the you, dear reader, is me.  I can’t tell anyone else not to buy cheap plastic crap (much though I wish I could).  I do want to save those pennies and buy a ticket or a book and spend the time investing in the expression of someone’s soul.

That is, I suppose, my resolution for 2014.  Read books from my community.  Go to art openings.  See plays.  Support the artists so they can find some sustainability.  So they can thrive.  And I suspect if I do that my life and time will be so full, I won’t have any empty space for anything else, even if it is 75% off.