new shoes

shannon at gravity pope trashing my old shoes

When you don't have a lot of money, you have to make choices about how to spend what you do have. Somehow, in the rough patches, I've always chosen things that fed my soul over more practical, sensible items. New paints, pens or brushes, colorful magazines full of exotic places and palatial houses, scraps of beautiful fabric, glowing chinese lanterns, dangly earrings that make me feel pretty... rich, soft cheese, warm fresh bread, raspberries, fizzy sweet orangina...

Somehow, having allowed myself these little extravagances {these tiny but precious luxuries} made me feel rich beyond belief and reminded me to stay connected to the joy in simple, everyday blessings.

Boring but necessary items, I can definitely do without. Fancy clothes, a new winter coat, socks without holes, new shoes...

One afternoon, Tyler Perry, a magnificent and wildly successful human being, who wrote, produced, and acted in the very funny and touching play/film, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, (a MUST rent when you need to escape to a happy place and have a really really good laugh...) came on the Oprah show. She asked him about the first thing he bought when he made some big money and he said, without hesitation... new shoes. Living on the streets, while he was writing, surviving, and hoping for his big break, he'd coaxed his old, worn, hole-y shoes into hanging in there. Just a little longer. New shoes were a sign of success, of transition, of hope for the future.

It's funny how things that seem simplistic (and even silly) to the outsider, can be so significant and symbolic in our lives.

Here's to tenacity, here's to people like Tyler Perry who remind us to hang on to the impossible dreams, and... of course... to new shoes.