Dropping a Shoe
Back when I worked for an investment firm in downtown Boston, I loved shoes. I loved them because I could buy them and put them in a drawer in my desk, and wear them for 8 hours a day. They were 2 inches, 3 inches, and these wonderful white ones that were almost 4 inches. I loved wearing my Keds on the subway with socks over my nylons, power-walking to Bruegger’s Bagels (sesame bagel plain), power-walking through Downtown Crossing to the Financial District, past the Spare Change guy, and into the building to the 13th floor. I loved feeling like Mr. Rogers (only in a skirt and nylons) and changing my shoes while my computer booted. Then my happy time stopped while I microwaved my bagel and got my soda for breakfast. Time to face the music: work. It wasn’t until we could receive “outside email” that work seemed somewhat interesting, mainly because I could be distracted with outside communication. It felt clandestine to get email from people outside the company at that point, and I was all for clandestine, especially when I put the Keds back on, put the headphones in my ears, walked up to Park Street Station, got my corner seat, pulled out my notebook, and got lost on the ride back home in a thousand poems a day.
My aunt and mother liked to tell stories about their mother, my grandmother (Nana), who would not hesitate if they put their shoes on the bed. Aunt Gail told the story about how Nana whipped her shoes at her head once for it.
I’m not into shoes these days. Practical mom says practical shoes are a must. So I have sneakers. I have work boots for Antarctica and wintertime—the construction yellow kind. Soft toes, though; I’m not hard core enough to need steel toes. I loved wearing those boots to work on the icebreakers—out on deck, working cargo. Out on deck, putting together the MOCNESS. And walking around in McMurdo, volcanic pebbles getting caught in the treads—while there were treads. I felt like good work in those boots.
So I’m dropping the other shoe, and going back to work at USAP. It was both a very easy and difficult decision to make. My current work situation just wasn’t conducive from a work-life balance. Read as much into that as you want; if you know me, you know more of that story. The difficulty in the decision came from feeling like this was a chapter I closed in my life, even though Marc and I have always said Antarctica will always be a part of our lives. It made us; and at the same time, we survived it. Antarctica, though, is more than a place with mud and ice and cold. It’s full of people, who become family. Even when you work in the office where you go home to your “normal” life, and not just back to a dorm room to see the same people at the bar or at yoga class, and then again at breakfast, the people are like family. But like any good book, really good book, Antarctica is one you read over and over. So I’m opening the book again. Even if I’m done (for now) writing about it. Still looking for that home for the book, though.
And maybe, I’ll buy a new pair of high-heeled slingbacks. Just to change it up some.