This is an odd picture – it was taken in the airport in Rome, or Verona, maybe – I don’t remember. I mainly remember the outfit, the shoes, and my eyebrows climbing in surprise. I remember thinking that it was amazing that those shoes actually stayed on his feet, and that they reminded me of Tink’s shoes in Disney’s version of Peter Pan and every story from the Ali Babba tale I’d ever read.
Those are awesome shoes.
Yesterday I talked to a boy from mainland China about a favorite vacation destination – Hainan. To my shame, I’d never heard of it, though the NYT did a pictorial postcard series on it not that long ago. Hainan, the Hawaii of China. A gorgeous place with tropical beaches that is fun to visit.
Every culture and people has its beloved vacation spots, its dress-up clothes, its national costumes (though I think ours is jeans and T-shirts. Or, maybe, war reenactment costuming??). This reminds me that we are all so much the same. So, so much the same. The commonality of the human experience is something which, in how we love our kids, accumulate our “stuff,” enjoy our food — it binds us as human beings.
Whenever some political propaganda tries to infer to me that “they” don’t love their children as much, that “they” aren’t like us, that they don’t care about freedom or whatever blah, blah, blah, is being peddled, I remember the truth and these shoes — and the natty traveler who was just — like us — busy getting to his destination. Like a school of minnows, going upstream, darting away from the shadows that cross the river, we are all fish, swimming. Varicolored, differently sized, with different abilities, but all of us in the water — together.
The world works much better if we can all avoid the sharks together, and just keep swimming.
Beautiful posting~and I need those shoes!