And so for me, comfort is essential in a shoe, but not at the expense of style and I believe the ballet flat succeeds on both counts. These iconic shoes may be worn with long pants, dresses, shorts and either short or long skirts. They represent to me the essence of elegance, along with a cropped pant, a well-cut crisp white cotton shirt or a horizontally striped t-shirt in the style of Audrey Hepburn or Jeanne Seberg, the fashion mavens of my youth.
And so as I contemplate my black ballet flats, I recall their story and their rich experiences. I have solved many problems while walking in these shoes: the decision to take early retirement from the Federal Government, and once that decision was made, how to shape this new chapter of my life. How do I want to be? What do I want to be known for? The graduation from work seems to represent an even greater transition than graduation from University. Every step makes it clearer. These shoes have accompanied me on my recent consulting contracts, my mentoring sessions with new immigrants to Canada and the many interesting courses I have taken since retiring: creative writing, Russian history, and landscape architecture. To consultation sessions, rallies, art openings, Board meetings, funerals, marches, book readings, country walks, city walks, and oh so many coffee shops, they have been my eager companions.
They are the perfect travel shoes as they take up very little space or weight. They have marched across bridges in Prague, Budapest, London, Paris, Bath, Cambridge, and Ottawa. They have tromped through the Roman Colosseum, the narrow medieval streets of Italy and the English cow fields of Cambridge. They made the “Death March of London” with my friend, an architecture professor, who wanted to see all the landscape architecture of London in a single day. They have visited all manner of museums: Etruscan, Roman, medieval, stopped in at Matisse’s house in Nice, been respectfully removed to wait outside a mosque, and stood next to a memorial of sad little bronze shoes lined up by the river which separates Buda and Pest, a tribute to those killed by the Nazis.
But I digress. Really, as I look with ever-increasing admiration and affection at my humble, slightly worn but still serviceable shoes, I wonder, is there anywhere you cannot take a pair of black ballet flats?
