Shoes On

I've been thinking about how much I hate shoes. My daughter hates shoes. Is this true for all kids?

I had a very difficult time keeping my shoes on when I had an office job.

In college, I used to go barefoot to class all the time. For one thing, this solved the problem of finding matching shoes. (Obviously, I went to college in California.)

In high school, every day I would walk home without my shoes. I carried my shoes in my hand. I went to Catholic school. Later, I found out that one of the nuns tried to keep me (unsuccessfully, because of the intervention of another nun) out of the school honor society. She had seen me walking without my shoes. I was not honor society material in her eyes, with my urchin feet and untucked shirttails.

The soles of my feet used to be black every night. I would rinse them in the bathtub before going to bed.

I once had an argument with some bourgeois on a mommy chat site. It was about one bourgeois mom's observation of a little child who was walking around barefoot and the parents' obvious neglectfulness. (In my mind, the subtext was that this child was not white. But I could have been imagining this.) I was like "I went barefoot everywhere as a child."  The person came in and asserted she saw the child cut its foot. Yes, sometimes I actually did cut my feet. My attitude about this was: Whatever. I was tough, at least about that.

Of course, in some ways I was a neglected child. Very  independent. I think that was the norm for the time and also maybe for the particular social strata I found myself in. And I have almost no life skills. So I tell myself that it is OK if I helicopter the hell out of my kid. I have taught the helicoptered children and they do rather well. They will go for a fancy ass internship like they'd been taught to bargain in the markets of Kandahar.

So much shit is happening right now. All these sick people, some really truly sick. We're losing people we love and pieces of our lives.  Chunks of what we love drifts away and we are powerless to stop it.

Is it like this here on out? Constant struggle?  The good times really are over? There isn't so much and many that we love and yet I anticipate that, if we are lucky, we will lose most of this until we go ourselves. What the fuck man?

Yet, I have it so easy in comparison to most. So very very very easy.  My feet are still tough but I'm a bit soft anyway. Is there some other way to be? Tough? Accepting? Wise? So should steel myself, man up or meditate and open my heart to the universe? What would Oprah do?

Comments

[slouchy]

What *would* Oprah do? She's inscrutable.

[magpie]

Who the hell cares what Oprah would do? Take your shoes off, and be soft/tough.

[schmutzie]

Life is unfair.

Oprah would open up another school in Africa to appease her guilt.

[schmutzie]

Also? You blow me aways sometimes.

[ozma]

Y'all I once explained my theory of Oprah, which I can't explain well unfortunately at the moment.

I guess part of it is that Oprah reminds me how utterly hopeless everything might be because she is constantly trying to tell people that if they do such and such a thing they will alleviate the human condition. So it just makes me think, given it would not pay off to put in all the effort beating off death and despair in the way Oprah recommends suggests we might as well not try.

Yet, I am charmed and amused sometime by the elaborate nature of the attempt.

Unless I'm wrong and Oprah will never die. I guess we'll see.

Schmutzie I hope I blow you away in a good way.

I think I'm going to start posting some really awful mean (pre-fictional) things. Pre-fictional-- sort of things that might be more like stories than reporting of my life. And I'm nervous people will freak out because bad things are unfortunately more interesting than good things but it kind of violates certain rules of blogging. So if I'm freaking you out in a bad way, be prepared to be more freaked out.

I sort of haven't overcome my fear about my blown anonymity. This makes it hard to write at all.

[kerewin]

Many times in the last two years I ask myself if life is like this now, if the good times are over. I used to think that every year brought something new and amazing, now I wonder how to create new and amazing and if I am even capable.

This might be why I am doing stairs 5 times a week. New and amazing? No, hard and annoying but change. Change is good, right?

I will sit here and wait to be blown, bring it. Change is good. (I thought the rules of blogging were that hard and bad were more interesting than good and happy?)