When Costco Was A Spiritual Experience

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I’ve been looking at the present moment from a bird’s eye view — scanning the scene above, down to what’s in front, with as much periphery as I can garner. I do this because I’ve been thinking about time lately and how it doesn’t slip away as much as it seems not to have been there in the first place.

I go about my days with tunnel vision — an entirely common experience. I don’t see what’s in front of my eyes as much as I focus on what’s moving through my mind — crawling, somersaulting, speeding, sometimes ballroom dancing through. In this way, life can breeze right on by unnoticed.

But that didn’t happen the other day at Costco. Instead, I stood in the crowded check-out area, absorbed the scene from a bird’s eye view and it stunned me. It was quiet and nearly hidden, and I wondered if I was the only one who saw it.

The check-out area of Costco is as large as a small store and when it’s filled to capacity, it’s a traffic jam of titanic shopping carts. It’s a mashup of shoppers, carts, and employees. It’s young folks, older folks, married couples, and kids sitting atop the titanic carts chatting with their parents or their siblings sitting next to them. It’s both patient folks and those stuck there in a state of urgency. Everyone is either daydreaming, phone scrolling, talking, people watching, neck-craning toward the front of the line, or if you’re a youngster, dozing. I’m usually trying to get my skew numbers on my ginormous products face up for a quick check-out. Always the organizer.

In the midst of this, it happened. I scanned the faces broadly and collectively which then formed into a vision of otherworldly humanity. It’s what would exist if the world was truly a melting pot — a sea of a peaceful arrangement of the beauty of us.

I live in one of the more diverse areas of the U.S., the Washington DC metro region. After living in New York City years ago, I don’t think I could live in a non-diverse place again. It feels right and communal. It feels sophisticated in its unspoken rule of assumed blending. In NYC, this is a point of pride — meaning, folks who know what it’s like to live in a community so diverse know something extra. While that might be NY-snooty, trust me, it’s earned. I think it’s more wisdom than anything.

Through a transformative experience, you’ll grow accustomed to new ideas and ways of living. You’ll understand types of dress, body language, social mores, and accents you hadn’t been exposed to before. It’s an education, and once acquired, you feel like a new kind of human — one that sees further and deeper.

But the otherworldliness I saw at Costco was about homogeneity despite how different the look or cultural representation. Everyone there was on the same page — to buy items that would support themselves and their families. Everyone agreed to the rules — wait your turn. Everyone was in general good spirits — folks appeared willing to put life on pause for a moment. Everyone seemed to blend at that moment and the vision took me to where the bird was looking down — from a vantage point where otherness, exclusion, hate, and reasons for violence don’t exist.

I know that’s the happy Costco check-out line in me. I know my heart and soul believe love-peace-and-togetherness is possible for our species. I know my brain is clear on the likelihood— not gonna happen. Just like I think it’d be cool to converse and sing with the whales, so I think it’d be cool if we could do that first with each other. Meanwhile, I live in a world with over 12,500 nuclear warheads. Whales, schmales.

I’m not an idealist though. I’m a pragmatist who loves love. I know we’re animals and animals will growl, tower over, and shred. But animals are cooperative, too. Or some are. We are. Sometimes.

When I looked at the Costco scene, I saw a story unfold. There were two young girls skipping behind their parents toward the exit door. They wore green martial arts belts double-wrapped around their waists. Their dad pushed the cart while their mom studied the receipt.

There was a man looking at his phone while his hop-skip-and-jump son flitted around the titanic cart. I fell in love with the boy, as I can easily do, and smiled at him each time he looked at me with his shy eyes. His older sister prodded him. They were happy fleas with no care in the world because their play in the long Costco line was no different than it’d be anywhere else.

An older woman with pale 85-year-old skin walked deliberate and slow, clutching her purse, staring into the distance, looking for something. Time? Memory? Answers?

A tiny, skinny old man with a gray beard pattered up to the check-out counter. I didn’t know an adult could be so small. He had a careful, thoughtful energy. He seemed kind and curious. I wondered what he’d be like as a friend.

I heard a baby screech like a hawk in the distance — not happy and letting us all know. I saw a woman in a head wrap with vibrant African design unload her things onto the conveyor belt with long gray braids draped down her back. She had a shiny spirit and smiled big at the Costco employee. I wanted to hear what they were saying to each other, but it wasn’t for me to hear even though I’d have listened if I could have. I’ll steal an eavesdrop if I can — a lifelong hobby.

In the air was the beep-beep of the price scanner which floated over this potpourri of people which had Indian, Japanese, Chinese, African, Middle Eastern, Hispanic, and European written all over it. It was head scarves and wraps, skinny jeans and sweatpants, Gap shirts and nice button-downs, flowy skirts, and comfy patterned pants. It was all the ages, accents, religions, and home situations. It was all manner of difficulty in life and joyful tears. It was knowing deep love and loss. It was kids oblivious and playful and — you know darn well — wanting Costco pizza at the conclusion of it all.

I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if the news featured a scene like this on occasion? It isn’t a flashy story of charity, politics, or tragedy. It’s the simple story of how we are when we’re hanging out while waiting our turn without stress or drama. In this story, people aren’t in conflict. People aren’t scary. Doing your thing respectfully comprises a calm vibe. It’s how I imagine it would be to sing with the whales — a flow of synergy. The sea would be without waves. The whales would see me as a perfectly acceptable creature, however small or funky I might seem.

I’ll never talk to whales, and we’ll never be without strife. But what I saw at Costco the other day was as true as anything else out there right now. I figure that’s something to hold on to.

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Be well, friends.