Living in the same town
wherein you grew up
provides ample opportunities
for deja vu moments.
Because moments,
monumental or minute,
unfold in the same spaces.
Connected by physicality
spaced over the decades.
The last time
I felt the pull of the past,
was when my work laptop died.
I dutifully drove to the spot
on the map that proclaimed
to be the "FedEx store."
And yet,
when I park,
an eerie sense of familiarity
overcomes me.
Of course.
I've been here before.
I walk under the dated arches,
Through the faux front columns
And recall, in bits and flashes.
I’ve been in this spot
In this exact storefront.
In 1990, it's springtime.
I'm there —
here —
with my mother.
We are here with a third person,
our Japanese exchange student
and extended house guest.
We deliberately, quietly
reverently browsed
the aisles of what was then
"Beauty World,"
a store which,
a decade before Sephora
claimed to be the county’s
fanciest makeup store.
I recall to this moment
—standing in the rain
with a clunker Lenovo—
the powdery fragrance of
face creams
potions
Christian Dior
Channel.
Our guest
had cooed with delight
that spring day.
“What ‘a deal!’”
She exclaimed,
proud both
of her usage of
American slang,
and her find of
classic French parfum
at half the price
it would fetch in Tokyo.
My mom, meanwhile
feigned comfort
while scanning disturbingly
high-end pots and applicators.
Mom's eyebrows
gave her away;
I could read in her arches:
Frivolous!
Inappropriate!
Inaccessible niceties.
Oh what luxuries.
She warily eyed
a nearby display
with a Rockettes line of
gleaming white tubes.
Gold encircled Clarins
hand and nail treatment cream,
a brand I'd never heard of,
stood tall
with pert red serif font
that foretold its importance.
“No price tags,”
She had whispered
ominously,
stooping down to me.
“Must be expensive.”
She risked pulling
at her heart, and her wallet,
her unvarnished nails lingering on
a gold tube of Clarins lip rouge.
The attendant behind the counter
threw my mom a passing glance
as she swept by to a regular patron,
as if to say,
"You can't afford to know the price
and you're not worth my time."
“I’ll keep my Revlon 'Cherries in the Snow,'”
Mom mumbled,
more to convince herself
than any bystanders.
I recall her stepping back,
placing the case to the counter.
And now I cross the threshold
of the old makeup shoppe, now FedEX
and I hand my bum equipment over the counter
and I sign on the invoice
and I ship off a new decade of memories
in a flat pack box
as I turn on my heel
and exit another wormhole to personal history
the kind that open only
in one's home town.
