Doctor Deb, my sister, called me from her car phone. The reception was so jammed with static, I couldn’t understand what she was saying.<\/p>\n
I hung up, called her back.<\/p>\n
Century 21 will be coming back to life next spring.<\/a> Same place, lower Manhattan. That’s what she said. She’d heard it on NPR.<\/p>\n I do believe I squealed, I do believe it. Noises of relief, of happiness were made. My feet danced under my desk. I hadn’t made them dance; they just did it, all by themselves.<\/p>\n Here is what I wrote in September 2020:<\/p>\n Day by day, the full ramifications of losing Century 21 seep in, as if I’m in shock and am not fully able to comprehend the scope of my loss. Today, as I pulled out my sock box, I thought, “Socks! Where am I going to get my socks?” I wear colorful patterned socks. Yes, I’m sure they sell elsewhere but not at Century 21 prices, which are often a third off retail.<\/em><\/p>\n A narrow focus but it was all I could manage at the time. Over the past few years, the absence of the store deepens into sadness.<\/p>\n At least half the clothes in my closets and on my shelf are from Century 21, so every day, when I open the closet or reach for a shirt, I have been reminded: Century 21 is no more.<\/p>\n So to quote a favorite lyricist, “O! Joy and rapture unforeseen!”<\/p>\n Later, when I got onto Facebook, Doctor Liana has messaged me, probably at the same time her mother called me. My joy was therefore doubled.<\/p>\n P.S. Neither of them practices “concierge medicine.”<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Doctor Deb, my sister, called me from her car phone. The reception was so jammed with static, I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I hung up, called her back. Century 21 will be coming back to life next spring. … Continue reading