Not sure

but personal, internal crises seem to be a monthly occurrence the past few years. Questioning focus, finances, future. All the F's, really. Even the f-stop on the camera is giving me pause.

• • • • •

Anyway, what I meant to write about was new footwear, as L's two pairs of boots arrived in a gigantic box this morning. Pristine. Thrilling. There is something so transporting about new shoes; the workmanship, the stitching. Their new-leather heady aroma. You breathe in the possibility of where you will go in them. And who will admire your grace and style as you purpose your way down the sidewalk (always a sidewalk in a big city, always late fall).



Not to be confused with the shoes your mother had reheeled for you and that squeeeeked squeeeeked squeeeeked down the reflecting unforgiving hallways of middle school.

Think instead of the discreet taps of the Italian high heels, subtle blue, of your 20s. Or the espadrilles that laced up your shin. hmmm.

Threw out good money on decorated Birkenstocks just last month. Can hardly wait to wear them . . .

The good grey guardians of art
Patrol the halls on spongy shoes,
Impartially protective, though

Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse.
-R. Wilbur

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dew
On white silence below.
We shall walk in the snow.
-E. Wylie