When you look across a room, when you cross paths on a walkway, when you're walking in your own little world, where does your gaze fall? When walking through the world on foot, supporting every step, is a shoe. Some walk through the world with their heads down, and their first impression of a person is the shoes they choose to wear.
High heels. Boots. Sandals. Tennis shoes. Wedges. Clogs. Slippers. Goulashes.
All functional. In their own way. Even if they look similar, each has its own unique story. Each has tread a unique path, has taken steps and trails, splashed through puddles and plodded through snow that no shoe will ever experience in the same way. Whether people like it or not, shoes are an important part of our lives, even if we only give them less than a second's thought. Purple laces, or grey laces? Do these wedges look good with capris, or are the sling backs a better fit? Do these come with velcro straps?
Even with the modern implementation of cars, walking (and subsequently the wearing of shoes) is a daily task. Getting dressed in the morning, some meticulously piece together each part of their outfit, hair ties matching makeup, belts matching shoes. There are dozens upon dozens of choices for which shoes to wear and each is placed lovingly in its own spot, ready to be chosen and shown off at a moments notice. Then there are those who shlep the day, sleeping until the last possible moment. Clothes are thrown on haphazardly and shoes are tugged, squashed, and mashed on, usually accompanied by a hop, hop, hop out the door and down the hall. But they are always there.
No matter their condition or how much thought or care is taken of them, shoes accompany us every day. Those who choose not wear shoes, jokingly called "trippy dippy hippies", are thought of as crazy, because who wants to go through life unprotected from the elements of the world? Who wants to be exposed to the muck that normally collects on the underside of a sole, wants to plod recklessly across gravel and hot tar during summers that are wished to never end? They have rips and tears, scuffs and scars, but they are loved just the same, if not more so. Some are held together with duct tape, bailing twine, an extra dose of crazy glue. But that day will finally come when a wound is inflicted that even duct tape cannot mend.
The soles are hopelessly holed, that tear along the heel is too large, the rain seeps too cold through the sock and in between the toes. Laces break, heels snap and crumble, tread wears off, embroidery and designs finally unravel and fall to the dust. We ties those laces together, stuff one shoe inside another, roll in a plastic bag if the smell is bad enough, and off to the landfill they go. The Land of Forgotten Shoes. The shoes who were there for junior prom, for the first time you rode a bike, walking on the beach with best friends, slippers snuggled by the fire on Christmas Eve. They are tossed aside, mashed in the grinder, gone.
But shoes are not people. Shoes are not memories, though they may hold them, bring them to mind. They are piled together pieces of rubber, leather, cotton, and polyester, nothing more. They may have kept feet warm, may have helped to climb a mountain, or showed off those calves at a high school reunion, but it seems important to add, that those in the shoes have so much more to offer than the shoes themselves. Because shoes, without a person, are just shoes. They will tread no paths, they will forge no trails, they will hike no mountains. The sole of the shoe may be rubber, but the soul of the shoe is the person who choses to give it life.
High heels. Boots. Sandals. Tennis shoes. Wedges. Clogs. Slippers. Goulashes.
All functional. In their own way. Even if they look similar, each has its own unique story. Each has tread a unique path, has taken steps and trails, splashed through puddles and plodded through snow that no shoe will ever experience in the same way. Whether people like it or not, shoes are an important part of our lives, even if we only give them less than a second's thought. Purple laces, or grey laces? Do these wedges look good with capris, or are the sling backs a better fit? Do these come with velcro straps?
Even with the modern implementation of cars, walking (and subsequently the wearing of shoes) is a daily task. Getting dressed in the morning, some meticulously piece together each part of their outfit, hair ties matching makeup, belts matching shoes. There are dozens upon dozens of choices for which shoes to wear and each is placed lovingly in its own spot, ready to be chosen and shown off at a moments notice. Then there are those who shlep the day, sleeping until the last possible moment. Clothes are thrown on haphazardly and shoes are tugged, squashed, and mashed on, usually accompanied by a hop, hop, hop out the door and down the hall. But they are always there.
No matter their condition or how much thought or care is taken of them, shoes accompany us every day. Those who choose not wear shoes, jokingly called "trippy dippy hippies", are thought of as crazy, because who wants to go through life unprotected from the elements of the world? Who wants to be exposed to the muck that normally collects on the underside of a sole, wants to plod recklessly across gravel and hot tar during summers that are wished to never end? They have rips and tears, scuffs and scars, but they are loved just the same, if not more so. Some are held together with duct tape, bailing twine, an extra dose of crazy glue. But that day will finally come when a wound is inflicted that even duct tape cannot mend.
The soles are hopelessly holed, that tear along the heel is too large, the rain seeps too cold through the sock and in between the toes. Laces break, heels snap and crumble, tread wears off, embroidery and designs finally unravel and fall to the dust. We ties those laces together, stuff one shoe inside another, roll in a plastic bag if the smell is bad enough, and off to the landfill they go. The Land of Forgotten Shoes. The shoes who were there for junior prom, for the first time you rode a bike, walking on the beach with best friends, slippers snuggled by the fire on Christmas Eve. They are tossed aside, mashed in the grinder, gone.
But shoes are not people. Shoes are not memories, though they may hold them, bring them to mind. They are piled together pieces of rubber, leather, cotton, and polyester, nothing more. They may have kept feet warm, may have helped to climb a mountain, or showed off those calves at a high school reunion, but it seems important to add, that those in the shoes have so much more to offer than the shoes themselves. Because shoes, without a person, are just shoes. They will tread no paths, they will forge no trails, they will hike no mountains. The sole of the shoe may be rubber, but the soul of the shoe is the person who choses to give it life.
