Feet

It all begins with an idea.

I’ve had this idea for the longest time that I’d like to write a collection of stories about shoes and the feet that were in them.

You may have had the experience, as I have, of driving down the road or even walking down the road and there, on the shoulder is a shoe. Nothing else. Just a shoe. It’s usually well worn and it’s almost alway one shoe versus a pair of shoes and I wonder How Did That Shoe Get There.

Have you wondered about that?

Did it go flying out a window - naughty kids in the back seat or a pissed off passenger in the copilot seat. did it fall out of someone’s back pack as they were hiking somewhere? Was the shoe owner dragged off into the bushes and their shoe remained on the roadside as a future clue? It fell out of the trunk while someone was changing a tire? Really, I mean it was one thing to come across casette tapes in the road - obviously someone had just had it with George Thoroughgood or or the sound track to Big Chill (I have found both but did not pick them up and rewind them seeing as how I had both of them at home) - but at least those I could imagine flying out the window when they tangled in the tape deck or played Jeremiah was a Bullfron one too many times.

But the shoes? What was going on just before that shoe landed on the road. Or slung over the telephone pole.

I love to make up stories that fill in the blanks of things I can’t know for sure. I’ve not been hung up on what the actuall truth of things are; the idea of what could be ture is way more compelling to me. It’s why I don’t use recipes to cook. And why I don’t watch clips of movies or shows that I am going to see. I don’t listen to music before going to a concert because I like to be surprised when I get there. I enjoy the process of savoring what it might be like more than a preview of what it is going to be.

I’ve backed up my car to get a better look at a hiking boot whose toes were chopped off. The options are endless but I’m going with a narrow escape that he did not want to be reminded of.

I ran over a sneaker that I didn’t see until it was right there. The racket and bump it made had me fearing I had hit an animal so I went back to see. It was a Nike high top. I had a flash of therre being a foot in it, it was so plump. I kicked to make sure I was wrong but the thought did not float away. There’s a story with that one.

So you get the idea - shoes and the story that goes with them. I guess you could call it a prompt that you’re welcome to go with. You could wonder along with me - what is the story of that shoe - and then write it.