I Don't Buy It

With time to spare before my appointment I was in the car, thinking where to go, what to do for nearly an hour and a half. I'm not used to so much free time, but I know what to do with it: find someplace to read and write.

The obvious choice was a coffee shop. I needed to buy a pound of beans anyway, so I turned off the highway, crossed Erie Boulevard, and drove up Westcott toward Recess Coffee. I was wishing I'd brought my bluetooth keyboard. I don't carry my laptop to and from school and so if I wanted to write it would be with two thums on my phone or by hand. Maybe I'd finish my book instead. That thought gave me pause.

I was almost through Cait Flanders' The Year Of Less in which she describes banning shopping for one year and coming to a kind of enlightenment. I could use some enlightenment (okay, a lot) so I haven't bought anything other than groceries since last week when I began reading the book. To sit at Recess, I feel obligated to buy a cup of coffee (along with the beans), but I didn't want to break the streak. Hmmm.

Instead, I went to the library where there's nothing much to buy. Maybe late fees or photocopies. It felt good being so very enlightened, but tiring too and I dozed off reading the book. I've made it almost eighteen years without being asked to leave the library and would like to keep that streak too, so I checked out a couple books and headed out.

Driving again, I thought of going to the used record shop. Surely records aren't on my do-not-buy list! But, crossed back over Erie Boulevard, I decided maybe they should be unless I go out of town to a new shop. Forty minutes early for my appointment, I parked in the lot, parked and took out my notebook to write these thoughts.

Am I up for a shopping ban? I was ready to not buy something today and that's good enough for now. I'm typing across from the turntable on which I'm spinning an album I bought in January. Writing, listening, and not buying. Doing those three things, I wonder what I might come to understand.