The world is changing one Dayton’s at a time

In December, I walked through the Dayton’s Project in downtown Minneapolis and felt a tremendous sense of loss. If you’re not a Minnesota person, let me catch you up. Dayton’s was a department store founded in Minneapolis in 1902. It was THE central department store in downtown Minneapolis until 2001. For me personally, Christmas and Dayton’s are intertwined. During my early parenting years, (mid-1990s to late-aughts), we picked a December weekend to spend time in downtown Minneapolis. It was a chance to enjoy the decorations, feel a little urban elegance, and catch a breath before the frenzy of Christmas week. We stayed in a fancy downtown hotel, wandered the skyway coat-free, visited the 8th floor holiday display at Dayton’s, then bundled up for the outdoor Hollidazzle parade (fun fact: the parade was held for 21 nights each holiday season from 1992-2013). Yes, it was outdoors. Yes, it was Minnesota winter weather. We are hearty people and we know how to layer.

This holiday season, my husband and I returned to downtown Minneapolis to see Dayton’s Winter Maker’s Market. With many major retail changes and the uncertainty added with George Floyd’s death and COVID, the company is trying a pop-up model to showcase local boutique businesses. It was wonderful to be back in the old space. But also jarring. The place where we used to select a Christmas ornament held vendors selling socks, felted wool hats, and kitchen gear. Dayton’s make up counters and shoe sections were cleared for a hallway with a central wrought iron stairway. Gone were the escalators, the men’s department, the evening apparel, and the candy counters.

The radically changed state of this former landmark triggered in me a deep sense of loss, that was beyond a change in retail space. It triggered loss I’ve been feeling in multiple areas of my life. Side bar: There are the normal lifetime changes of a 50-something person [the pleasure of dialing a rotary phone; the magic of getting cash from an ATM] and then there are the accelerated changes of the past few years. Post-COVID, changes that were on the horizon have fast forwarded. It seems we’ve landed in a different world, where institutions that seemed secure and stable feel shaky and uncertain. Department stores, churches, healthcare, education, history…central parts of my life, feel wobbly. In a sympathy card this fall, someone used the word unmooring. That word feels right to me in this context of loss and change. It's unmooring.

In tandem to these massive changes, everyday life continues. Shoveling the walk. Unloading the dishwasher. Doing laundry. Feeding the cat. Going to meetings. Rinse. Repeat. The Netflix show, Derry Girls maps out this parallel universe paradigm, where a teenage girl lives her life in Northern Ireland, with normal angst over relationships, school, the future, while at the same time viewers are shown a chronic backdrop of violence, fear, and conflict. We’re in a similar paradigm. Swirling change all around and striving for normalness.

We’re journeying in dimly lit times. The world is in a state of flux, institutions we thought were unshakeable have changed, visions of the future are hard to pin down. Much as I may wish to return to the stability of department stores and my (incomplete) perceptions of the past, the journey lies in front of us, not behind. I wish for simplicity, predictability, a perception of equity, a faith in justice, a belief in accurate information, a hope for complete truth. But instead, I feel disappointed, betrayed, curious, frustrated, confused, clumsy, wistful, lonely, optimistic…all of these. I don’t know what’s ahead. I’m not sure I can manage it, but I’m going to try. Let’s walk together.