3D Danse Macabre

August 3, 2024

Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre, Op. 40, is based on the French legend that Death packs a fiddle and comes to play at midnight on Halloween, causing the skeletons in the cemetery to crawl out of the ground for their annual graveyard dance party. ~ Andrea Warne

Not long ago, the idea of braving the Costco frontier and wending my way through that enormous store filled me with dread. Today, I went on a shopping trip I’d planned for weeks, and once I was swallowed up by the supersized warehouse, I was seized with a sense of rampant consumerism that satisfied some primal need I wasn’t even aware of.

Did I buy things we didn’t absolutely need? And was I tempted by more things we didn’t need? Yes, and yes. Even the sticker shock at checkout wasn’t enough to dampen the slightly giddy new-stuff excitement. Nor did it matter that the stuff consisted of food and household supplies with a side splurge on a few goodies. 

Something about the act of seeing a desirable object, examining it, and placing it in a cart to be mine was absurdly delightful. I’ve never gotten the same charge from shopping online…there’s something so visceral and tactically pleasing about touching an item that we wish to welcome into our lives.

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I developed a love-hate relationship with Costco after walking became so painful seven or eight years ago. I shopped there only because some necessities are so much cheaper it feels irresponsible not to. Five full months post-surgery I can go for hours without remembering that it was ever painful to walk, and on this last Costco trip, discovered I’ve ditched the “hate” part of the relationship.

I like to think that the mild case of shopping fever was, at its core, harmless. It was somehow a celebration and a welcoming home. Something I could not do for years, something that physically hurt, I can now do easily. 

I wonder why it is that certain activities feel non-spiritual in nature, even something innocuous like enjoying a modest shopping spree at a big box store. And now I compound the non-spiritual element by allowing a trickle of resentment that I’m even having these thoughts. Why can’t I just enjoy being a human in this 3D world? Does everything have to have a better or higher or more spiritual aspect for me to accept it as a worthy endeavor?

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Perhaps this angst over a trivial thing is as simple, and as complex, as low self esteem, lack of self-worth. It’s not so much that the activity of accumulating is non-spiritual as that I believe I don’t deserve these things. I don’t deserve to spend money on those splurge items. 

Having  a low opinion of myself is nothing new, but I thought the active stage of that disorder had subsided for good. Apparently not, because here they are again, low-vibe partners standing at the circle of the dance, waiting for me to accept their ghostly invitation to a final 3D danse macabre. Yes, we know you waltzed with us before, but let’s take one last turn around the floor. We’ll whisper secrets to your ethereal ear and promise to depart, never to return, leaving you unburdened as you walk into your own future light. 

I think the first waltz has already played, sounding eerily at the edge of hearing as I threaded through Aisle 34 and shivered in the walk-in refrigerator at Costco. Goodbye, goodbye. I shan’t miss you, ancient companions.