{"id":9962,"date":"2022-11-30T13:49:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T13:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=9962"},"modified":"2026-01-15T20:45:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:45:23","slug":"shoes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=9962","title":{"rendered":"Shoes…."},"content":{"rendered":"

 Our writing word this time is “shoes.” It’s my word, in the sense that I gave it as the idea for the next writing exercise. Well, I love shoes. I am a “shoe person.” I can remember most of the shoes I have worn since grade school. I remember saddle shoes and white bucks. I also remember polishing those shoes with a white chalky solution, when the white wasn’t white anymore. I pine for my patent leather dress shoes, even though they pinched and I can’t forget some scrawny running shoes that fell apart at the seams.<\/p>\n

In high school, I wore black oxfords. They were part of my school uniform, however, I changed into more fashionable black “gumdrops” or “desert boots” to ride the buses home. On the weekends we went to dances and I had “dancing” shoes. These shoes always had a heel. I had one pair of green suede shoes with a small hour glass heel, which I loved. I also had a pair of brown leather T-strap shoes with a slightly higher heel to go with a brown corduroy suit I had made.<\/p>\n

I remember going to shoe sales after Christmas and buying three or four pairs of shoes at a time. I loved a classic pump with saddle stitching or a shoe with a front that laced up like a boot. When I started teaching, I decided to buy a sensible pair of “Clark’s” shoes with a sturdy heel for all the standing I would be doing in the classroom. These shoes for all their expense and their trusted name, squeaked. When I presided over examinations, I was the pariah.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the pair of shoes that I have worn the longest were actually given to me. My neighbour came by one day with a large, black garbage bag full of shoes. A friend of hers was decluttering and decided to throw out a centipede’s worth of shoes. Here was a shoe person too, but not of my standards. Her shoes weren’t leather. They were bought in a department store, not a dedicated shoe store and many had extraneous buckles or other ornamentations to “fancy” them up. However, they were bought in multiple colours – brown, black, red… I wore the red ones on the days I needed to wear ruby slippers.<\/p>\n

I kept what I thought I would use and gave the rest to charity. In spite of their inferior quality, I wore one black pair of shoes for twenty years. I had them resoled twice before I finally decided I couldn’t wear a heel anymore.<\/p>\n

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Somewhere, though, in the midst of all this fashionable “footing” is a heart ache. In fact, two heart aches and both were in Spain. Years ago when I was hitch hiking through Europe, I was in Madrid and had decided to buy a pair of shoes in Spanish leather, after the folk song – “Boots (or shoes) of Spanish Leather.” I took ages to decide. I had to spend my money wisely, as I didn’t have much. Finally, I chose a pair of white Mary Jane’s with a low heel. I wore them with white stockings and a black and white dress to two weddings that summer. Sadly, I don’t know what happened to them. But I remember the angst of buying them. I remember how the song played out in my head and I remember how timeless I felt every time I wore them. I was part myth, part music, not really of this earth. These were shoes from another world.<\/p>\n

My second story of shoes in Spanish leather happened fairly recently, about seven years ago. I was in Seville and I decided to buy another pair of shoes. I was fascinated by the shoes worn by the flamenco dancers. Many were tied with ribbons. (I forgot to mention that I did have a black pair of patent leather shoes which I had bought in London years ago that were tied with ribbons.)<\/p>\n

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Finally, after looking in every shoe store in Seville, I found a black pair that were tied with some awkward patent leather laces. I decided that I would replace the laces with ribbon. I brought them home. Unfortunately, I never made time to go to a fabric store and buy ribbons for what is probably my last pair of dancing shoes and since I have now lost my dancing partner, I may never wear them. A little sad like the song of lost love, I mentioned earlier. In the restless to-ing and fro-ing of life, we often forget what is most important.<\/p>\n

Have a memorable day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 Our writing word this time is “shoes.” It’s my word, in the sense that I gave it as the idea for the next writing exercise. Well, I love shoes. I am a “shoe person.” I can remember most of the shoes I have worn since grade school. I remember saddle shoes and white bucks. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9965,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9962\/revisions\/9965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}