Shoes. Somehow they are an incredible delight to me as the years go by. The body goes, clothes become less and less important, but somehow shoes become more fun. So I am often taken by shoes, and probably am collecting more than my share in the last couple of years. Most of the time they are really good shoes, a great pair of KEEN sandals that have traveled Malta, Thailand, and many places in the US, a new pair of KEENS that have reflectors that can stop traffic, and are lighter than my sandals, some truly adorable brown walking shoe things that I got at Sonora's best shoe store, my "mary jane" merrils that can go with anything. All fun, most of them practical, useable, and built to last the rest of my lifetime, maybe 20 years or so at least! Ha.
But traveling through the Salt Lake airport last month I met a pair of shoes in the women's bathroom that truly caught my heart. I never met the woman wearing them, she was in the stall next to me, with slinky black pants and painted toenails, and these amazing shoes peeking out beneath her pants cuffs. Wow. Somehow the woman became endowed with brilliance, intelligence, money, and incredible taste. I could never wear a pair of shoes like those, but still, it fascinated me as I observed my reactions to those shoes.
Home that evening, and Moana arrived for our planned weekend outings. First on the list was the Annual Calaveras Grape Stomp in Murphys. I love Murphys, it somehow is more like what I imagined Sonora to be before I moved here. We drank wine as we carried our commemorative glasses around town, visited the booths of art and food, enjoyed the Abby compliments from a dog loving town , and sat down in front of a quaint little shoe boutique on Main Street. Of course, I had to go in and window shop, and lo and behold, there they were, those same silly shoes that I saw the day before in the stall in Salt Lake City airport. Silly. Incredibly expensive, and even more silly, on sale for 75 percent off. Hmm, maybe that means they are no longer in style? Who cares. I carried them outside to show Moana, since I had actually told her the shoe story, and she laughed when I said, "I don't need these silly shoes at all." "Well, why not?" she asked in return. Why not indeed?! So I bought the shoes. Silly sillly shoes. I will wear them with my black slinky pants to the dress up dinners on our tour and on a cruise, wherever.
I certainly know that shoes are not a great spiritual lesson, but still, these shoes remind me that silly magic also happens, and to acknowledge that magic is a gift. Silly shoes. Magic shoes. Dorothy shoes. I hope I am never too old to see magic all around me, even in a silly pair of shoes.
I took a knitting class yesterday, 6 hours o
f knitting in one day, with a lunch break. There we 8 of us in the class, varying levels of experience, but no beginners at least. After 6 intense hours of instruction, this is how far I got on the Undulating Waves scarf. I wasn't alone. Most of us were on something like row 10 or 12, after learning a lot about how to knit backwards as we unraveled our mistakes. I hope I can actually get the hang of this thing. Pat, the instructor, insists that we will eventually get it, as we all knit along. Lucky for me, the fee for the class includes as many "knit along evenings" that I need to finish it without paying the 7. fee for those evenings. Something tells me that I may be showing up on Wednesday nights after work while I try to actually finish this thing. Something else tells me that this may not be an airplane project. Lots of counting and measuring, and sliding of beads, and concentration. I am happy so far with my scarf. Unlike my fingering weight socks that went the way of the stash bin. We will see how it goes. 
