New Shoes

The last day in Hong Kong, I bought a new pair of Doc Marten’s. Chrissy hasn’t said it in so many words, but she sees my shoes as my style of a mid-life crisis. I bought a pair of Sperry Top Siders, last spring, a pair of Converse All-stars Chuck Taylor’s, and now these boots. All of the shoes that I have bought this year harken back to my youth in high school. I had shoes similar to or identical to all of them while still in school.

I don’t know what it is about a new pair of shoes, but each time I buy shoes, I always project myself into the future. I always have a vision of their final steps, and I try to see where these shoes may take me. It is the only article of clothing that does this. There is a definite romance about shoes.

I had a pair of sandals that walked on the Russian side of the Sea of Japan, traipsed upon the sands of Miami, tasted the salt of the Caribbean, soaked in the sun of Cabo San Lucas, and crossed the English Channel before they visited the coast of Marseilles. When I bought them, I would never have dreamed that they would carry me to all of these places. My newest pair of sandals have only taken Spanish in Costa Rica and taught English in Japan. They are still young.

I had a pair of boots similar to the ones I bought in Hong Kong, they lasted over twenty years before they were worn so much I had to throw them out. I still own one pair of shoes that I bought twenty-six years ago. There is no romance in tennis shoes. They only last six months. I wear them everyday.

There is something about shoes that portends the future. You never know, these boots could just take me home.