Sneakers

The day we walked down 18 dark flights of stairs to leave our dark apartment, I wore my $10 Kmart sneakers.  An obvious choice--no reason for any additional instability when walking down stairs in the dark.  And since those were the shoes on my feet, they continued to be what I wore for our days of "camping out."  In all my years of working, I have worn non-novelty (I have an excellent pair of peace sign high tops that spent many a day on my feet) sneakers to work so few times, I could count the times on one hand and have fingers left over.  My husband, who wears sneakers every day to work in his lab and teach at a university, is amused at the number of different pairs of shoes I wear, but has given up commenting, except if I wear shoes that make noise.

We are now back from our travels, and I once again have access to my shoes (we're not talking a huge collection here, just a little variety).  And what have I worn since we got back?  My sneakers.  Granted, I worked from home today.  But when we went to a concert tonight, while I considered changing into something more "concert-worthy," in the end, I went in sneakers.  There is somehow a level of security, stability, preparedness that they provide, and I guess some part of me is not ready to give that up yet.  If I need to run, I can run.  If I need to climb stairs, I can do that too.  And if I just need my feet and the body they hold up to be on stable ground, no other shoe I have--casual, dressy, or novelty--does the job quite the way my sneakers do.  And sometimes that is more important than appearance and perception and decorum.  Sometimes security just trumps them all.  At least for a few days.