By the second or third time I checked back with the Sears auto department I finally had to admit to myself that I was going to be stuck at the mall for a while.
I had just moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for graduate school. I didn’t know anyone yet. The nearest person I did know was John (my then-fiance), who was an hour away in Birmingham.
My car needed new tires. A year of driving between Athens, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama will do that. In Athens, I had always had simple car work done at the Sears in the mall. That way, I would have something to do while I waited. Tuscaloosa also had a Sears in their mall, so it seemed like the perfect place to get new tires.
I got there when the Sears opened, which was a little before the mall opened. I walked around outside, then inside. The first time I checked back with Sears, they hadn’t started working on my car yet. I had been the first one in, so I couldn’t imagine what was keeping them. But I walked the mall again, and then came back. Still no progress.
I sat on benches and called friends...until my phone was almost dead. Then I started to panic about being stuck at the mall and not being able to call for help.
I ate lunch. I got a hair cut. I didn’t have a lot of money to buy things - all of it was going towards the car.
Then I started walking the mall really slowly, observing every detail. That was when I realized, with a rueful smile, that being trapped at the mall for the day was strangely like my day in the wilderness. I occupied myself the same way, at least: by engaging more fully with my immediate surroundings.
Back in highschool I had become a little obsessed with the idea of going into the wilderness. All my friends gave up things for Lent. I did too, occasionally. But I knew that the forty days of Lent was supposed to represent Jesus’s forty days in the wilderness. To me, going into the wilderness seemed like a better way to understand that, than living without chocolate until Easter.
And it wasn’t just because of Jesus. It was because of Casy. I read The Grapes of Wrath in high school, which became, and still is, my favorite book. Casey, the less-than-perfect preacher spent time in the wilderness to find himself.
I loved that. I wanted to find myself. I wanted to go into the wilderness and have a religious experience.
But how could I do it? Realistically, how can a teenage girl get to a some area that at least resembles the wilderness and spend time there without possibly endangering herself?
Year after year I would try to think of some way to go into the wilderness and year after year, Lent would pass and I’d let it go until the next spring.
Until my senior year of college. I was living in a neighborhood that backed up to a park. And our spring break fell during Lent. I figured I could walk into the park on one of my days off. There wouldn’t be many people there on a weekday. I could have my day in the wilderness.
On the fateful morning I packed a small backpack with a blanket, a jacket, my keys, my cell phone (in case of emergency only - it was turned off), and a bottle of water. I didn’t eat breakfast, I just walked to the park.
Instead of walking through the trees straight from our neighborhood, I walked down the road to the front entrance. I wanted to officially leave the civilized world behind. There was a police officer sitting in his car in the parking lot.
I walked past him, and didn’t think there would be a problem, since I was doing nothing wrong. He stopped me to ask where I was supposed to be. It took me a minute to realize he thought I was a high school student playing hooky. This was probably because of my backpack, the fact that I was on foot, and the fact that the high school was not on spring break that week.
I told him I was on spring break from UGA and just wanted to spend a day in the park. He asked to see my license. I invited him to walk back to my apartment with me to get it. (I never go out without my license now, and this is why!)
Finally he gave up and let me go on into the park.
Right at the entrance, there was a bridge over a creek. But to the side, there were some large rocks. I just knew I could get across the creek on those rocks.
The thing is that wet rocks are slippery. I slipped near the middle of the creek and got wet all down one side of my body. I gave up on crossing the creek, made my way back to the entrance side, and walked to the bridge. I was glad the cop hadn’t seen me do that, but since it was a little chilly, I regretted that I would now spend my day in the wilderness wet.
First I walked the trail that went around and through the park. That took under an hour. Then I started exploring off the trail. I went down into a secluded grove, spread out my blanket, and meditated.
I walked the trails again, more slowly. It wasn’t about walking anymore, it was about everything there was to see. I saw a probably-rabid raccoon stumbling around a clearing, and I walked in the opposite direction. I saw a lizard on a tree branch. I watched that lizard for long minutes before I realized it was watching me and was somewhat terrified of me. I moved on, much to the lizard’s relief.
Occasionally, I ran into other people. With a brief greeting, we both moved on quickly. My guess that the park would be mostly deserted on a weekday had been correct.
I watched the sun move across the sky and had a good estimate as to the time. Throughout the day I sipped on water, but I had nothing to eat and I was not hungry.
Late in the afternoon, as I passed by the hill that led up to my apartment complex, I stopped. I felt home tugging at me even though it was my goal to stay out longer.
Suddenly, I felt myself become frustrated. I was doing it. I was spending a day in the wilderness. But was I finding myself? Was I learning any great spiritual truth?
How could I? This wasn’t really the wilderness. I could just go home any time I wanted.
I wavered on the hill side. This was a foolish undertaking. I should give it up and enjoy my spring break.
Before officially calling it quits, I asked myself again, why I was doing this. To be like Casy and Jesus. I thought of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. He could have turned stones to bread or thrown himself off a cliff or become ruler over all he could see. He certainly could have left the wilderness any time he wanted - as easily as I could have left my fake wilderness.
Maybe the point was staying. Maybe what really mattered wasn’t overcoming the challenge of being stranded in the wilderness, but choosing to be there. I stayed in the park for the rest of the day and walked home that evening with a sense of peace and accomplishment.
A year later, in the Tuscaloosa mall, I felt a little disgusted by my realization that I was once again “in the wilderness.” The wilderness was supposed to be something sacred. Some pristine natural space. A space without other people.
A mall is almost the exact opposite of that. It is all commercial. It is all man made. And it is full of people.
But, it was a day of my life. And when I chose to really be there for it, it got better. I didn’t get to go home any earlier. My car wasn’t ready until closing time. But, I had been running away from the situation at first - talking on the phone, distracting myself. I couldn’t escape. In a very real way. More real than when I was in the park. I actually couldn’t leave the mall.
Taking my attention away from the mall was only a temporary fix. I wasn’t truly calm, truly making the best of the situation, until I decided to be there. I really looked at the other people around me. I looked at the things for sale in the store. I looked at folds and corners and shadows. I looked at the tiles on the floor. I noticed every single thing you don’t notice when you go to the mall to shop. It wasn’t nervous lizards and rabid raccoons, but it was a lot more beauty and truth than I had ever given the mall credit for.
I think I needed both days, the day in the park and the day in the mall, to really get it, because it is easier to choose to be present in the forest.
I had paid so much attention to Casy going into the wilderness and learning some truth that I didn’t pay attention to the rest. He came back out again. That was probably harder for him than going in. He was a preacher who didn’t preach anymore. He was full of sinful ideas. It must have been hard for him to be around people. But he thought people needed each other. We are all part of one big soul.
The “wilderness” isn’t just the wilderness. It is everything. Even very un-wilderness-seeming things, like malls. The mall is part of that soul. What would I miss by ignoring it? And what did I miss all those years I just wished I could go into the wilderness, not realizing I was already there?
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