Old Age Day by Day April 13, 2010

My husband was telling me at breakfast today about a couple of bad dreams he had last night. My dream was about shopping for shoes with my younger daughter and a friend. I could hardly force myself to listen to my husband; I was so preoccupied with attempting to recollect exactly how the shoes looked. My daughter's were turquoise and shiny, with cream colored wedge heels and mine were thin strapped sandals in a browny maroon, also wedges. There were no prices and I was anxious about the cost, not to mention the fact that I shouldn't have been buying shoes. I have more than enough to last this lifetime. But they were so beautiful, and I was torn between practicality and desire. Somehow I doubt that my husband has ever had a dream about shoes, and certainly never woken up trying to cling to those shoes, by prolonging the view of them, the color, the feel. This is trivia taken to a higher level. I should win an award for frivolous dreaming.

Oh, well, some of us are not cut out for higher mental contemplation. My most repetitive dream is about moving into a house and attempting to get each room straight and the more I organize the more I fall behind. Basically, my real life housekeeping experience.

I was brainwashed into loving shoes. My mother and her friends would drag us daughters along when they went shopping, because it was a big event, and a lot of buying had to occur in one day, as the city was two hours away from our tiny town. I watched them plow through box after box, turning an ankle, stepping carefully to the floor mirror, buying pointy toed high heels and never thinking of the practical. No tennis shoes or ballet flats for my mother. Naturally, I slowly began to understand that shoes were terribly important, the crown of the outfit, the jewel of the Nile.

Shoes are kindly, too, as even if your clothes don't fit your shoes do. So forgiving. You need to put your best foot forward, best shod foot that is. My voice teacher was complaining recently about having to wear old lady shoes - and I understood her despair immediately. I don't wear spike heels or ankle turners, but I do like a colorful, slightly crazy shoe. I like my tootsies to rest in personality, not coffins. I may be old, but I'm not giving up, and my shoes tell the story.