just a pair of shoes

I can't believe it has taken me

over a week

to post this entry . . . .

I am still around! 

But the world has been way too much with me. . . 

to all the readers who pass by this page

either purposefully

or by happen-stance,

I promise:

I'll be back to regular blogging,

and regular visits to your blogs

very very soon . . . .

( harpers )

About a week ago,
I was part of an organized discussion,
where the leader proposed we all contemplate the topic
of shoes.

Quite frankly, I didn't think the conversation would last all that long.
But we all quickly came to realize that one should
never underestimate
the meaning of
a shoe

This conversation was part a training session
for group leaders
in a spiritual context,
so nearly everyone considered the sacred places
where we take them off --

( islam.about )

This seemed far too obvious to me; my mind
went to symbolic shoes,
magical shoes,
not to mention
my own shoes, too.
These are the shoes I am wearing right now:

( zappos )

They are also the shoes I was wearing on the day,
when I contemplated shoes.  As I sat there thinking about them,
I could suddenly feel them --
feel my feet inside of them,
and the ways the shoes held my feet:
comfortably, inconsequentially --
minimal support but enough
to get by.

'Tis true:
 shoes do
say a lot about me and about you.
In fact, we talked for quite some time
about the Meaning of Shoes.



I don't have a lot of shoes,
but the shoes I do have I buy for walking;
I have very few shoes
for decoration only --
I take shoes seriously, and I don't give them up
easily.
Because I wear my shoes well,
and by the time they are unredeemable,
they are so full of stories that I cannot part with them.
I have more old shoes than I have
photo albums, not to mention
more old shoes than I have
new shoes.

I am no Imelda Marcos
.

. . . and yeah, I have big feet.

As I sat there thinking
about shoes,
beyond my own shoes,
a collage of symbolic shoes
crossed my mind --
shoes that have trod the pages of popular,
and unpopular
culture for centures, and I was amused
and amazed by the stories
they told,
far more than the average library.

For me, when someone leaves my life
for whatever reason they might
leave,
the hardest thing they could leave behind would be
a pair of shoes --
I would have to look at them
every day,
maybe
twice a day,
until I got up the nerve
to pick them up
and get rid of them.

In their emptiness,

shoes imply stories,

some finished,

some in progress,

some yet to start.

So as I contemplated this humble

entry on shoes,

I started looking for pictures of

interesting shoes ~ ~

Well, here are a few,

only a few

Read on, and let their emptiness
fill your mind with images of where
they may have been:

( bible-archeology )

( lizciokajlo )

( costumes.org )

( prior two photos from arttatler )

( indiashoes )

( americanduchess )

( newworldorderreport )

( fashionfabulous )

(lulusvintage)

( catsmidwestmayhem )

(above two pictures from jerzygirl45 )



. . . . . and . . .

Shoes are magic,
never forget it,
shoes can take you
anywhere
you want to be.