The mall

The squish is over. 

Coral model

Sports tournaments, awards banquets, dances, Sunday school, summer job paperwork, graduation parties, and school are all done.

Summer clothes…that’s a hard one, isn’t it? 

It’s been a couple years since Ada and I have made our regular shopping trek, but my daughters united in petitioning me to take them, so we seized on the only spring Saturday when we were all in town and didn’t have school or a soccer game.

Liz was (somewhat literally) dizzied by the vastness of the mall but was very successful in the hunt. I came home with little more than a hat that I impulse bought because Ada said it looked cute on me, but I really just went to help Lizzy anyway.

A hat, and insecurities.

Ada convinced me to try on a pair of stylish wide-leg jeans (“Just try it”) and they were horrifyingly unflattering. The mall is full of impossible outfits that I would protest can’t look good on anyone, until I see the adolescents strolling by already wearing them.

The mall is a danger to my psyche. 

Thank God my anchor runs deeper.

Perish every fond ambition,

All I’ve sought or hoped or known.

Yet how rich is my condition!

God and heaven are still my own.

~ Henry Lyte, “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken”