I miss malls. I miss the dynamic nature of them. I miss exploring them. I miss seeing all the things that people could buy. I miss the atmosphere. I miss the fountain you throw your pennies in. I miss meeting so many different people. I miss the escalators. I miss the joy of going into the mall pet shop and seeing the animals warm up to you. I miss sitting at the food courts, eating my weirdly quality pizza and taking in the ambiance. Hell, I miss getting lost in malls.
One of the things that feels like a stab in the heart as an aspiring parent is I will never be able to take my kids to the mall and have them experience the same experience. I look at malls now and want to cry. Look at me, a commie crying over a pillar of capitalism. That’s how much of a friend malls were to me, yet nobody I know will say they relate.
This reminds me of my experience with COVID lockdown. Obviously, a pandemic and the vulnerable being sick and losing over a million American lives (and much more globally) was horrible. But for a short time, it was incredible to see the amount of people just visiting parks in the middle of the day and enjoying the warm spring that year. Getting outside to nature was a way a lot of people coped with the isolation and it was beautiful in a way. Moms and grandmas were sewing cloth masks, distilleries switched to making hand sanitizer, people in my area began using local businesses more. There was a definite sense of community, even if it happened through FaceTime calls and social distancing. There are always silver linings to tragedy, I guess.
Yeah, you tend to see the best of humanity during a shared struggle (and sometimes the worst too, but seems more often the better).