Skip to main content

Wandering

Every woman should have at least one pair of entirely impractical shoes. I don't care if you only put them on to go to the bathroom. They should be there in your closet to remind you of your dress-up roots. (We all have them buried somewhere within us; it's part of the female DNA.)

I bought another pair of impractical shoes today. They are fushia. Stiletto sandals. (Not too tall.) I'm in love with them. I found them in a small shoe store filled with all sorts of unpronounciable Brazilian brand names. I've only worn them to the bathroom so far.

My purchase today got me thinking about my wandering roots. I'm not much of a shopper because I equate shopping with hunting. There'a s purpose in mind, and purpose doesn't usually bring me the refuge from the world that I crave.

Wandering, on the other hand, has no purpose. There's no time frame. I'm not obligated to load plastic bags in my car.

I wander more than I realized. Sometimes I hop in the car and drive without regard for the cost of gas. Other times I just walk out the front door and pace in winding circles around my property or on the school campus or in a strange new place.

I've wandered alone on foot through the streets of Washington, D.C. and Cancun and a small town called Hubbard. I've wandered in silence with friends and acquaintances through Dallas and Vegas and Nashville. I've paced beaches in Melbourne and Sarasota and Nassau. My first cruise was nothing more than 3 days of me wandering all through the ship at all hours of the day.

Then there's the wandering I do in my head. Through books. Through the internet. Through the endless array of puzzles and stories and rabbit holes that bounce through my mind in the course of a day.

I like it that way. It's this wandering streak within me that leads me to the most fascinating places. It's funny how you start to recognize the pieces that make up who you are. I've been a wanderer for as long as I can remember, but only lately have I come to see just how much a piece of me this is.

Comments

Christy said…
That's the part of me that I call my inner gypsy :) I like to wander, too.....especially in impractical shoes. I'm lusting after a pair of them in Ross right now. I may break down and get them.
frabjouspoet said…
Ross is one my favorite places to get impractical shoes. I kept myself out of there this morning.

Popular posts from this blog

The Carnival

It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon here in southwest Florida, although still a bit too warm for my November tastes. I'm learning to enjoy my weekends with as much unstructured and unscheduled time as possible. Last Saturday was a delightful unstructured day. A new friend of mine (the one from the Everglades excursion) and I went to a local carnival. Now, here's the thing...I LOVE carnivals. The food. The people. The rides. The lights. I can easily spend an entire day wandering through the crowds. He's no carnival slouch. The first thing we did was walk through the entire place, scoping out the rides. Then the fun began. We rode almost every ride there (except for the kiddie attractions and the broken Tornado). The Wild Claw. The Scrambler. The Orbiter. The Space Oddysey. The Swings. The Pharaoh's Fury. The Ferris Wheel. The Giant Slide. The Haunted House. The Avalanche. It was all good. How can you top a ride that uses centrifugal force to plaster your body against...

Busy Days Ahead

It's been a busy week for me. I left my house at 4:30 Monday morning for my drive down south and pulled back in my driveway at 1:20 this morning. The days have been long, too, between working at the new school from 7:30 until 3:00 or 4:00 and then working at the new place until 9:00 or 10:00 each night. I now have callouses on my fingers and not one intact finger nail. I think I've also developed a new twitch somewhere on my face. One afternoon this week, I stood in the middle of our new living room and took in the sight of missing drywall, a growing hole in the floor and soaked up my husband's predictions that we still won't be ready to paint by the weekend. All I wanted to do was cry. All I felt was nothingness. Numbness. Anyone who has ever reached the point of numbness knows that it's scarier than feeling like you're falling apart. It's one step beyond feeling like you're falling apart. I couldn't help but wonder just what we had gotten ourselves...

Stranger Obligations

I had to make a few difficult decisions this week. At least, they were difficult for me. I wish I could be the kind of person who completely makes decisions based on his/her own needs and wants and boldly moves through life with unabashed freedom from how our choices affect others. But I'm not built like that. I had placed an ad for my former stray. I felt like it was time to find her a more permanent home because so much in my life right now is uncertain. One person answered the ad, but she did not seem like a good fit, and I gave up further thought. This week I received another response. As long as this person is telling the truth, it's an ideal situation for the dog. Yet, I had a strange feeling and could not sort out whether or not it was my intuition kicking in or that fact that I actually like the dog and don't want to see her go. In the end, I decided that it was in my own (and my Winnipeg's) best interest for her to stay with us through the summer. (I seri...