These New Shoes

I always love a new pair of shoes, no matter what color. I stepped out in some today, wood heels, cool brown leather criss-cross straps, pretty tall heels...you know, just putting on a pair of heels makes you feel "dressed" right?  Right. Until the pain sets in. Now, I am an experienced high heel walker and can negotiate some interesting terrains in most of them. However, sometimes you just get a bad angle on your arch. This can be not-so-cool. You look cool, polished and put together, but if you can't walk correctly, why bother? I would rather look not-so-fabulous and "float" across the room (as a customer once said about my daughter when she was waiting tables) in flats, than to look like a storm trooper coming in for a raid in gorgeous high heels I can't walk in. I am sure you have seen it. Expensive clothing, fabulous shoes, "Clonk-clonk-clonk...." it is usually accompanied by poor posture. I have seen some of the most beautiful women guilty of this. I suppose that was why they used to send girls to "finishing school"...Where are the wise women who teach these thing to us now? Where are the Heloise's, the Mrs. Manners'? So today, in spite of my sharp dressing, in my new shoes, I pulled out my flip-flops and floated, bearing in mind that the proper carriage of one's self shows more class than expensive clothing/shoes. It is not the garment, but the woman inside the garment, and how she uses what she has to accent her best features, along with how she conducts her self in public that has bearing on her character.
How to do this? Hmmmmm.I think it is important to follow your heart in all things. If today, your heart is very drawn to those comfy sweats and flip flops, do it...just do it with passion! BTW...do you have your "crazy" shoes yet? I would love to see them!! Send me photos, and your story.

Undignified Musings

I am amazed at how the human mind operates. Especially mine...I wonder at how I can make myself think what I want or need to think at the time, at how I can push out what I need to push out, bring in what I need to bring in, etc...I wonder at how I react instead of responding, the preferred method. I am becoming more and more amazed at the complexity of the human brain. All those psychology terms:
denial, transference, delusions, fantasy, boundaries-the one I hear all the time, self-care, self-abasement, control, etc, etc, etc...

The Blue Suede Shoes are an interesting expression of where I am in this journey to being real. I think now it is time to search out some really crazy ones, obnoxious maybe? For the time being though, I may pull out the red cowboy boots, just 'cuz. Cuz my sista bought 'em for me the last time I went through a "passage" like this. They too, are symbolic...I think today though, I grieve. I grieve over all the delusions I have lived by. I grieve over losing ground by not being real to myself, to God, to you. "You" meaning anyone I know. Yes, it is strange, and hard to mid-life publicly, but if Brittany can shave her head, Tom Cruise can jump on chairs on Today Show, if Mel Gibson can flip out publicly, and so on, why can't the rest of us just go for it? Aw heck, there is no dignity in that is there? Dignity...That is what will keep you OUT of your Blue Suede Shoes, or your Red Cowboy Boots, or your Yellow Galoshes!!

Dignity....dignity....I prefer to be undignified. But is is risky. I prefer to be passionate, but it is often misunderstood. I prefer to just go for it, but I often fall flat on my face...like now. Prostrate. Making sand angels again! In my Boots no less. Undignified. Real. Humble. Real. Grieving even my dignity..but still Real. I think that Real is something God can work with. Delusional, well, it just keeps us in our own prison. I prefer Blue Suede Shoes, or Red Cowboy Boots, or Yellow Galoshes in the sun to prison...how about you?

How I See It

"Summer: Times of Refreshment"

 

Amazing how an upcoming reunion can pull on that old high school urge of feeling like you are "missing something" I decided not to go, for many reasons, some of them silly, some of them perfectly rational, some of them just make you say what? I think it is the vast culvert between who I was trying to be and who I have become. It is a conflict between how I was perceived and who I really was, that I chose to hide in shame. It is the conflict between others' expectations of me , and  a bit of my own disappointments in myself. No regrets? I keep trying to adopt this, I want to embrace it, but for me it is not truth, and that is okay.  Better to live in truth, than to embrace a great idea that is not a good fit for me...isn't that how we end up regretting?  Don't get me wrong, I have much to be thankful for, I have been blessed beyond measure with deep friendship (a precious few) great children, who have potential to do anything their hearts desire, they have great big huge hearts, and generous souls, and they all live passionately. I have a husband who loves me. 
The regret lies here: I never trusted people enough to be real. There are people who don't know that I love to sing and dance. There are people who don't know I love the act and play characters, most of my high school friends (most of whom I don't keep in touch with) don't know I am an artist. Most don't know me at all. That was my choice to be a chameleon; to change my colors; to blend...to "fit in", and to act like I was supposed to... What is so ironic about this is that I never did "fit."  One day, I realized it. The truth. You never find a "place" when you aren't being honest with yourself. There is never a place for living a lie that will feel comfortable. The problem with this is that truth often alludes us; hides us behind masks of our own making. We craft them so well that we begin to believe them ourselves...then, they don't fit and we make a new one, or add more "stuff" to the one we have, or repaint it, but we are still wearing a mask. This brings me to my point; Isn't it easier to just be real? Go ahead and pull that mask off and buy those Blue Suede Shoes, or that yellow hat or those crazy glasses...Do It! Heck-Buy a stinking rolling pin if that is what you want!! I once bought Purple Suede Boots, which I eventually fractured my hip in...ha ha...But I GOT THEM!  Celebrate YOU...and be sure to comment, I want to know YOU, because YOU are worth knowing!

~Me and my Blue Suede Shoes

On Image

The never ending image pressure can just weigh you down, so I tossed aside only to see that maybe SOME of it is good. When you let it all "hang out" some of the stuff you should have kept in gets "stepped on" and not necessarily on your Blue Suede shoes...maybe on your more practical Brown shoes. Worse yet, your nicest high heels.  You know, you put on your heels, and go to "strut your stuff" and next thing you know, you slipped on a lemon someone dropped on the floor? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. I have fallen down in my high heels more than once, just when I was thinking I was lookin' pretty good...that is an image workshop in itself!
The first humiliating experience in shoes, was in High School, of course..just missed my big reunion, so this is fresh stuff..New outfit, new high heels, feeling pretty snazzy, walking right by the field house, the pressure is on, football practice is just starting...gotta keep the image up (really? did I have one?) my heel catches a rock on a slope, and that is all she wrote, down I go, new outfit, and all...a charming look, believe me. Charming. And that is what I will leave you with...just when you think you have kinda got it together, something will invariably happen to "bring you down"...so whatever you do; remember that it can happen to anybody. That is why you don't step on MY Blue Suede Shoes! Yours are just as vulnerable!!
Now my red cowboy boots, the ones my sister got for me, they are another story, Like I have heard it said, "Some boots are made for walkin', mine are made for kickin' ass." If I pull those out, watch out! Hoe-down time!