A matter of trust

Why fight the shoe, if it fits and everybody says the pair looks really nice on you, anyway. OK, maybe they're not you're favourite shoes. Maybe you want shoes that make you look taller or thinner or smarter. Maybe you think these shoes can't take you to the places you want to go. Or the places you think you want to go.

But really, are you the best judge of what looks best on you? Maybe, but maybe not. You like these shoes well enough. They're comfortable, and with every step you take, you feel like you're in your element. What's more, these are shoes that allow you access to other accessories, even other shoes, whole new outfits, in fact.

So why not just accept it? Stop struggling. Realise that perhaps what you think cognitively is not exactly in synch with what is right, even what is best, for you at this point in your life.

Maybe the right thing to do is to just take it step by step. Accept the shoes for what they are, for what they allow you do, and not find fault with them because of how you feel they make you look for the long term. What do you know, anyway? You're not always right.

For all you know, they are special shoes, magic shoes, ruby slippers that can click click click you into there's no place like home. And must be worn with trust and acceptance, and hope that even better, more powerful shoes are to come your way.

The way it happens sometimes

By serendipitous circumstance, A's Amazon order arrived at my house. No big deal. We agreed in a rapid exchange of emails that I would open the box, pop the books into an airmail bag and send it off, not to the city in Vietnam in which she and her family will be living for the next three months, three hours away from Saigon, but to her home in upstate New York. So I open the box and am instantly gripped by the first tome called Family Travel - an anthology of personal essays on travelling with people you love. An hour later, I am close to halfway through, and have thoroughly enjoyed most of what I've read. I also realize that I haven't read for my own fun in ages. I will send the books on to their rightful home - but not just yet.

That's just the way it happens, sometimes.