Back during the last ice age of my college days, I took a creative writing course. On the first day of class the prof set a ten inch wooden pear onto the table and told us to start writing about it. The thousand word essay would count as our first exam, and it was due on Friday.
I was pissed, thinking what is this? Give me something real, something with heart and soul to write about, will yeah? You want me to write about a chunk of wood shaped like a pear? I finally quit moaning, wrote the assignment and got an A minus on the essay. Who knew.
Thirty-nine years later I am sitting with a little pair of green sneakers that my granddaughter Maddie has out-grown. For five months they’ve just been sitting here teasing this story into words. I’m not sure if its the poet or photographer in me, but feet, and what covers them, and where they go and how they track through the planet, has always intrigued me. Footwear tell stories, and speak loudly about the road one travels.
It’s amazing to think that a child of three years could have much to say by the shoes she's worn to date. But Maddie’s journey from life’s startup to present has had challenges to overcome that most of us simply never experience throughout our lives. That this little girl has coped and thrived, having suffered two strokes days before her birth, that left one eye vision impaired, and, her balance and walking muscle/toning gait also challenged, makes her every step and gallop today, for me, a cause for tearful celebration and joy.
As I work with young people professionally and in ministry, children and teens cross my path in shoes that are sometimes worn clear through their soles, tattered by the miles of their ordinary days. Some of their shoes carry notes of boredom from math class, scuffed smooth from trolling the malls, skateboarding or, “I love you’s” scribbled by pals; little tablets of life of where they’ve been and hope to journey to tomorrow.
Maddie doesn’t wear-out her shoes... yet, but for now outgrows them and graduates from one pair on to the next. Having a focused forward-pushing mom, who’s also an artist, means Maddie’s shoes, clogs, sneakers (and occasionally braces and corrective casts) in every season are kick-ass, festooned with glitter and doodles that little girls love.
I have endless hope for the shoes that Maddie will one day wear. And I plan to continue piling them up as they become available. But today, Madison Rose has just tooled around the corner and is pointing at her newest treads, waiting for me to notice and agree with her that they’re pretty darn special. I barely have time to gush along with her, as she grins, spins awkwardly on one heel and clip-clops out of sight. For this grandpa, there’s no better sight or sound in all the world.
kevin! thats awesome! i neveer quite thot of shoes as little stories, but thats really very true! i mean, if my shoes could talk, theyd have 1000000000000 stories to tell u kno. i dont wanna kno if i want 2 hear all of them, like what it's like to be in the back of a car for three days or how cold snow is when your left outside in it until the next spring but still! i'll have 2 give some thot to what my shoes would have 2 say..... hmmmmm....
Posted by: caitlyn | November 07, 2008 at 10:00 PM