Happy Feet

When I first arrived in Seville two years ago pushing everything I owned along in one large piece of rolling luggage, I had no slippers. Slip-on bedroom slippers, I mean, the kind most people wear around the house. I had a pair in Little Italy, but along with a lot of other things, they got left behind. My guitars and keyboards synthesizers were left behind. I hum a lot now. All my vintage film cameras, lenses, all those things we photographers use to help us take pictures, all left behind. Many boxes of color slides, audiotapes, and disks with the music I composed, two unfinished novels, and a nearly finished memoir, a closet filled with clothing, my furniture, kitchen utensils including a costly set of quality knives. All gone.

And, as I said, my slippers. 

Is the loss of the things that represented my past a great tragedy, a reason for self-pity? Not so much. Before the fire, I was thinking of selling the lease on my rent-stabilized Lower Manhattan apartment and moving out of the city. The fire made that happen.

I was planning to do digital conversions of a few hundred slides, my favorites. That would have been a lot of work that I now won’t have to do. The clothes would not fit the new thinner me. The furniture? Charity shops would not take that stuff. My efforts as a novelist and composer and performance musician? Those things were important to me for a time in my younger days. Looking back, I picture those areas of endeavor as large, bright rooms that beckoned, that I entered with enthusiasm, crossed, and then exited. I may still write the memoir. After all, I know the story. I still write and I still do photography. 

That will have to be enough.  

In Seville, I made a new friend—Velina from Florida. She is a super person, full of energy, very helpful, and for some unknown reason, she became involved in helping me find a suitable pair of slippers. Velina was helpful with many more important things (she speaks Spanish) and we had lots of enjoyable lunches together. The hunt for slippers didn't work out. 

She would text me or call and tell me she had seen some slippers I might like in a little shop just north of the Parasol or down by the Tower of Gold. I would go and look but there was always something keeping me from buying. Was the Spanish size right? Is that my color? Often they were just too fancy or too costly. So I never did buy slippers in Seville.

And I've also done without slippers in Liverpool this past year. Today I solved the problem. Here are my new slippers. Okay, they're not exactly new. But that's not a bad thing. They're old and worn out, but they're comfy. They're familiar. They did their job as shoes and now they will have a second life as slippers.  

Can wearing slippers help us avoid the coronavirus? I hope so.