Clarence,

By the time I finished the banana your daughter thoughtfully offered me, I had overcome the feeling of walking in clown shoes.

I know I have never met you, but I have walked a mile in your shoes. I think your shoes are what drew Joi into this project. I tried to take her suggestion of walking by the water. I followed her directions, but there was a train crossing, so I parked a little sooner than she had instructed. When I got out and walked to the train tracks, the freight train was still there, inching along. I waited at the crosswalk by the tracks with a team full of high school cross-country runners. They jogged in place or around in small circles as we waited for the train to pass. Eventually, they got tired of waiting (or maybe practice was over), and jogged en masse away from the tracks. Joi mentioned you used to ride the rails when you were my age. I watched the train inch by, with frequent long pauses; after a few more minutes, I also gave up.

I turned around to walk around the main downtown area. After passing two antique shops, I ducked into the third. Many different dealers and collectors all had their own niches in this particular shop. Walking from one to other felt very personal. Each case, shelf, and rack displayed the items that caught a particular dealer’s eye. I got sucked into a bin of old photographs, clippings of vintage lingerie ads, and signed publicity photographs of unfamiliar stars. I couldn’t help but wonder if any of this had ever belonged to you, or to your best friend from grade school, or to your mother, or her mother. Sometimes, I wish I could obtain a written history of some of these objects. If bought one of these dishes, it would be so that I could eat off of it and dream about all of the other meals that have been eaten off of it. Walking in your shoes is a similar experience, filled in with very small snippets that I have gleaned from conversations with your daughter. When she initially contacted me, Joi described walking miles and miles in your shoes after you died. I can understand the desire.

Thank you for the opportunity to walk a mile in your shoes.

Sincerely,
Sara, shoe borrower