ten years

a friend wore a very nice pair of boots on election night. she said she bought them at varda, an expensive shop (or series of them, maybe) in nyc. most of the shoes there are handmade, i think. about 10 or more years ago i went into varda and fell in love with a pair of women's wingtips. usually in those days women's wingtips were too delicate looking for my taste (i don't really look for them anymore so i can't say how they look these days,if they are made at all).

the pair at that point were feminine but sturdy, beautiful workmanship, comfortable. my friend julia wore wingtips in college and she was the epitome of cool. but she is very tall and statuesque and wore men's shoes often and hers had a formidability women's shoes lacked. the varda shoes cost more than $300 (in fact, i think they were closer to $400.) at that point in my life (come to think, it was definitely more than 10 years ago that this here episode transpired) i had never spent more than $300 on a pair of shoes. and i was not making much dough in those days. also, such an expenditure seemed ostentatious, gluttonous.

i could not bring myself to splurge as i have sometimes since. instead, i would bring friends with me to the shop for verification that shoes were lovely beyond imagination. and i would, again, try them on and imagine buying them. i think i did this about 4 times over a year's span. on the last occasion that i brought a friend with me, a fellow named josh who i haven't seen in a long time, the price had come down. a sale! now they cost just below $300, which should have been encouraging. and yet, when i looked at them, my love had faded. now they looked clunky, ugly, not worth getting. i knew that after a few wears i'd shove them to the back of the closet where they'd gather dust.

friend, i walked out of that store empty-handed.

this has to do, actually, with courting, with infatuation. you meet someone, you think they are oh so interesting, oh so attractive, you think about how your life would be different if they were in it. and it would! how much more happy you'd be, how more self-assured, how much more attractive (beauty from within blah blah blah). life would be a peach (or a nectarine, which i prefer, really when it comes to fruit), but sometimes, during subsequent time spent with a person, you are less enchanted, just a little, but perceptibly to yourself. maybe you don't let on the small disappointment. maybe you can't help but do. on subsequent meetings even more charm of the interaction seems to have seeped away. even the zest of looking forward to a next meeting has lost some of the bubble. and then one day you stop caring altogether. you are disenchanted, annoyed, maybe repulsed.

10 years ago (really, it was exactly 10) i bought a pair of red boots in milan during thanksgiving. they were the most expensive shoes i ever bought (up to that point), and i loved them. and i wore them. and over the years, i have more or less continued to love them, though the affection has changed in kind. i am even today wearing them. they are scuffed, the leather is worn in places, the insole is a bit shredded, but i can't let them go. 10 years is a pretty good life span for a shoe.

it seems like it'd be a pretty good life span for a relationship. or at least the start of one.