{"id":7,"date":"2005-11-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/chatteringmind\/2005\/11\/meeting-myself-at-macys.html"},"modified":"2005-11-02T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-02T12:00:00","slug":"meeting-myself-at-macys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2005\/11\/meeting-myself-at-macys.html","title":{"rendered":"Meeting Myself at Macy’s"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The famous Macy’s store<\/a> on Manhattan’s 34th Street now has two shoe departments: a “Comfortable” shoe section stocked with sneakers and rubber-soled sandals, and a “Fashion” shoe department brimming with the kind of spiky footwear you might see on “Desperate Housewives<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

As I was recently flounced in a club chair, waiting for the sales person to bring me my size-seven clogs in the “comfortable” shoe department, my eyes naturally wandered up to the sand-colored walls. There, using six-inch high, 3-D letters, Macy’s interior designers had decided to embed words and phrases like “NURTURING,” “GENUINE,” “EASY GOING,” “NATURAL FIBERS,” and “ORGANIC.”<\/p>\n

Smiling broadly now, I read on, as my awareness broadened to include the soothing music meant to seduce me into making a purchase. “THE NEED TO SIMPLIFY,” the walls said, “YEARNING FOR CONNECTION,” “CREATE YOUR OWN DREAM,” “UNIQUENESS AND AUTHENTICITY,” and then… inexplicably, “TACTILE TEXTURES” and “EVOLVE YOUR MOOD,” which I chalked up to a bad moment in Macy’s copywriting department.<\/p>\n

Having worked as an advertising copywriter for JCPenney in my first year out of college, I can well imagine the creators of these insipid buzz-concepts sitting around an office conference table, asking themselves “What is it that the woman longing for COMFORT wants?” I kind of like it that people are wanting to get in my brain.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I’m wondering: are women like me a parody, similar to the folks who once talked to their plants? Or are we so influential in our buying habits that we’ve reached the status of consumer culture opinion leaders?<\/p>\n

I believe it’s the latter, quite frankly.<\/p>\n

I do unabashedly connect to all of the nut-and-berry messages posted at Macy’s. And as someone who was considered offbeat for seeing a chiropractor and ingesting bee pollen twenty years ago, I’m gratified that things are finally going my way. It was just interesting to greet myself on the walls of Macy’s, or at least see Macy’s reflection of who I might be, just as I, too, am beginning to connect with my own radiance.<\/p>\n

So I bought the shoes, in spite of the walls. And I know I’ll happily walk many miles in them.<\/p>\n

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The famous Macy’s store on Manhattan’s 34th Street now has two shoe departments: a “Comfortable” shoe section stocked with sneakers and rubber-soled sandals, and a “Fashion” shoe department brimming with the kind of spiky footwear you might see on “Desperate Housewives.” As I was recently flounced in a club chair, waiting for the sales person…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMeeting Myself at Macy's - Chattering Mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2005\/11\/meeting-myself-at-macys.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meeting Myself at Macy's - 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