The end of the world

So this week I’ve been focused on the end of the world. How it’s all going to end. And, in case you missed it: the end of Pier 1.

Pier 1 Imports bankruptcy: Chain files for Chapter 11 as it continues closure of up to 450 stores

I remember going to the Pier 1 at the Dayton Mall. Back when there was such a thing. It was the kind of place a teenager with a meager allowance could spend a few bucks. Candles, little enamel lacquered boxes that opened like treasure chests. Imports from Africa, wooden beads, parasols from the Orient. I wove stories—even if there is no Orient, but a figment of the imagination. It wasn’t about geography—more a place of mind. A key chain from which dangled a leather Moroccan shoe with an upturned toe.

Reinforced stereotypes.

It might have all been junk made in China.

But to a fifteen-year old from Centerville, Ohio it was exotic. Worlds I could hold in my hands. Without getting on a plane I could go instead to Pier 1 and travel long distances. Walk a Turkish bazaar, Lost in a Marrakech medina. Meander the tiny, alley-like passageways in an Italian hill town. Look out over top of the terraced balustrades onto green valleys, climb belltowers, follow the River Wye.

Pier 1 was not about imports but about imagination. For a dollar I could go places. For the price of a dream I could run away.

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