In 1992 my hair was the color of parchment and covered my paper back like a faded bookjacket. I wore hippy dresses and combat boots, hung out in coffeehouses and rent-houses, smoked poetry and cigarettes. I had no cash; I starved to buy these shoes.
Since then we've had quite a journey. Together we've dipped our toes in bliss, climbed purple mountains, and drudged the River Styx. We've tripped, leapt, and been lost. We've witnessed life brewing and life being poured out.
A little black lab chewed the heal of one while I cried the night Kurt Cobain died. They held me at the corner of 6th and Harvey while I memorized every mangled I-beam and car-sized concrete slab of the bombed-out Murrah Federal Building, and they held the smell of hospital antiseptic far too long after the night my dad came back from the dead. The right one pressed into the floor plank a million times in the dark to rock a chair and a baby. I was wearing them when yoga found me.
Over 18 years they got weak while I got strong, and today they get to rest in peace: Zappos delivered a new--almost identical--pair this morning. I wonder where we'll go.
I was gripped by this post. Partially because I live in Oklahoma City and the bombing has affected our lives so deeply. But also because of what those cruddy little shoes had come to mean.
ReplyDeleteThanks, David, for connecting with the spirit of the piece. I'll have those "cruddy little shoes" forever.
ReplyDeleteBeatiful post, Ange. I relived every moment with you and I remember the first pair you bought me.
ReplyDeleteFantastic!!!
ReplyDeletemine our new but they are willing, I am excited about our journey.....
ReplyDelete