ISO Cobbler

ISO Cobbler

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The heels were worn but the shoes were still comfortable, so I decided to repair them. A friend directed me to an environmental clothes cleaners with a shoe repair business on the side. When I walked in with my peep-toe pumps I was met before I even reached the counter. “The man who repaired shoes for us, he died,” said the clerk.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I told myself. A few years ago, I’d had a sandal strap repaired at a little hole-in-the-wall place in the mall, barely bigger than a closet. I parked in the large, scarcely used lot, entered the sad, empty mall, and found the cubbyhole. A grate was closed and a sign posted. “I am sorry, but I am closed. Please call me if I still have your shoes.”

Two strikes now, but for some reason (naiveté?) I was confident I could still locate a cobbler. I did some googling and found a phone number for a man named George on Route 29. Not exactly my neighborhood, so I called first to make sure he was there. A booming voice answered the phone. “Yes, I am George,” he said, “and I am here. The guys with the websites, they are closed.”

Two days later, I drove to George’s place. It was bustling. While George worked in the back, clad in a no-nonsense black apron, customers entered to drop off and pick up their footwear. George took one look at my shoes and shook his head. “No way I can repair these,” he said. “I don’t have the material for it.”

“But I’m willing to spend some money because I like these shoes so much,” I pressed.

“I’m sorry,” George replied. “I won’t take on a job if I know the customer won’t be satisfied in the end.”

I couldn’t argue with that. George knew his limits. He had mastered the art of saying no. I wish I could say the same for myself. Maybe it’s easier for a cobbler than a writer.

I slunk out of George’s with my banged-up pumps, drove home and threw them in the trash … photographing one first, just for the record.

Marigolds!

Marigolds!

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In the garden, coneflowers and black-eyed Susans are fading, but on the deck the marigolds are still going strong. They bob their bright orange heads and beg to be pinched when they’re beyond their prime.

After I touch them I inhale my fingers and revel in their distinctive aroma. It’s a scent that keeps the pests away … which means I should probably have them all over the yard.

The sight and scent of marigolds reminds me not of a particular autumn, my first year teaching high school English. I had no car so took a subway north from Evanston to a commuter bus. There were marigolds growing near the bus stop even in the cooler northern Illinois October.

For that reason marigolds have traditionally carried a hint of melancholy or at least of anxiety. (The first year of teaching is not for the faint of heart.) But I seem to have broken that spell this year. This summer, I finally see marigolds for what they are, a cheerful flower that brightens the days.

Motion is Lotion

Motion is Lotion

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I first heard the phrase “motion is lotion” from a physical therapist. I took to it right away. Movement matters. It can heal body, mind and spirit. The more you move, the more easily you move. I believe this. Most walkers do.

The expression pops into mind especially after a new exercise routine or enthusiastic weeding session leaves me stiff and sore. That was the case this morning, as I hobbled out of bed into my running tights and t-shirt to do the neighborhood loop with an ever-loosening gait.

My eyes have healed and I’ve no more excuses to skip the grunt work of exercising: the planks and poses that pit body weight against gravity. I went up against the weeds over the weekend, too. They have run rampant lately.

All of which means I needed the lotion that comes from motion. Come to think of it, I should get up and move a little more right now.

(Walkers in York, England, get some lotion from their motion.)

Working With People

Working With People

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As we celebrate Labor Day I’m thinking about work, what it means, how it changes as we grow older. Last week, I penned an appreciation of the writer Wendell Berry, who died a week ago. I proposed the piece, wrote it quickly, and the editor turned it around in hours.

It was the sort of thing that happened all the time when I was part of a magazine staff or a communications team, but it doesn’t happen that way much anymore. The pieces I’m assigned usually have generous deadlines, as do my papers for school. Writing is much more of a solo occupation than it used to be, and this has made me think about the part of paying work I miss most: collegiality.

I remind myself that even if I was part of a magazine staff again, I would likely be writing and editing from this desk in my upstairs office. I worked at home for years, quite happily. But one of the reasons I became part of a magazine staff again was for the people.

Do we underestimate the people part of labor? Kind colleagues can make a difficult job bearable, while snide, backbiting ones can make each day a prison.

When we talk of labor, I think we often concentrate on the tasks at hand, items on a to-do list, the headwind of the working life. Good colleagues are the tailwind. They help us glide through the labors of life.

(Colleagues, friends and bystanders on a work trip to Bangladesh.)

Partly Sunny

Partly Sunny

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A walk yesterday in air so thick I felt wrapped in cotton wool. One of my favorite trails has become less shady as trees have aged and toppled. It’s the perennial story here as the old giants teeter and fall, the ones in our yard like losing old friends.

I thought yesterday on my walk that the path I used to think of as mostly shady is now partly sunny. Our backyard is like that, too. More patchwork than monotone.

Nothing wrong with this. It’s just a matter of shifting focus and expectations. It’s a loss … but also a gain.

Wendell Berry: 1934-2026

Wendell Berry: 1934-2026

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Wendell Berry, the poet of place and placedness, Kentucky’s native son, died August 31st at the age of 92.

“I can’t believe it,” I told my brother Phillip, who called from Kentucky to share the news. “I was just thinking about him.” Phillip said he had just been thinking about him, too.

I imagine many people felt that way. Once you knew Wendell Berry and his work you thought about him often. He was an American original.

Berry taught Phillip freshman English at the University of Kentucky. “I don’t think he much liked my writing,” Phillip said.

I never studied with Berry. But I did study his writing. In fact, just last week I was thumbing through one of this books, Home Economics. And after hearing of his death I re-read one of my favorite Berry essays, “A Native Hill.”

As I begin the thesis-writing year of my academic program, I’m turning once again to Berry, who was both a walker and a philosopher. He, more than most contemporary writers, articulated the delicate but indelible bonds between people and place, and especially, between writers and place. Rest in peace, Wendell Berry.

The Soul of Travel

The Soul of Travel

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A Wall Street Journal headline caught my eye: “The Surprising Mental Health Benefits of Getting Away.” This time last year I was away — with a week of travel left before our return. This year, a different to-do list for late summer.

But the research must be right, because it matches my lived experience. Of course travel improves mental health. How could it not? It keeps us on our toes. It provides opportunities for awe. It allows us to be ourselves in a way few other activities can.

Traveling can be as simple as driving somewhere without GPS assistance … or as complicated as a monthlong foray overseas.

What matters most, I think, is being in uncharted territory. You are on a subway that may or may not take you to Heathrow Airport. Your garret room is up four flights of rickety Alsatian stairs. It seems as if there is nothing you want to eat in all of Portugal.

So what? Life happens. And travel reminds us that it does. It’s not just good for the mind. It’s good for the soul.

Seasonal Expectations

Seasonal Expectations

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Weather does not always conform to our seasonal expectations. Take today, September 1. In my mind it should be fresh and crisp, like the first page of a new notebook or the crunch of autumn leaves under brand-new, too-tight penny loafers.

Instead, we have the opposite: full-bore summer, humid and limp, a feeling not of fullness but exhaustion. The papers on my desk speak of back-to-school diligence, but my mind is wandering.

I’m fantasizing about a late season getaway. It won’t happen, but it appeals. A trip to the shore where bikes rule and gulls soar, the freedom and fun of it.

A blue jay squawks and my mind snaps to attention. It’s September 1, it will be 97 degrees today, and I have work to do.

(No autumn leaves here.)

World of New Light

World of New Light

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It’s the quality of the light I notice most, its tints and texture, gradients and shading. The lick of flame from a gas burner is startlingly blue, another band in the spectrum. In the morning, window shades glow with a brilliant border. Bright light is everywhere, saturating the landscape, pouring in windows, illuminating forgotten corners. The light has become a place of its own.

When Mom’s cataracts were removed years ago, she looked at a room she’d recently painted and realized she hated the shade of green she’d chosen. We’d wondered what she’d seen in it. Turns out, she hadn’t seen it at all, only its yellowed cousin. Once she glimpsed the real hue, she repainted.

For me it’s the blues that have been a revelation. The cerulean paisley seat cushions on the deck, azure reflections in the glass-topped table, whites so bright they burn blue.

It makes sense: the cloudy lens is gone, a new one in its place. But nothing could have prepared me for the clean, bright world I would encounter in its wake. A world of new light.

Second Sight

Second Sight

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Cataract surgery number 2 was yesterday, and I’m getting used to my new eyes, to this second sight. It’s been less than 24 hours, so the verdict is still out, but already I know a couple of things. My house needs a good scrubbing and I’d forgotten how vibrantly colored the world can be.

The scrubbing will take care of itself. Or, actually, I will take care of it. And likely I’ll post about that too, when I get around to it.

What I want to write about today is how blind one can be to gradual change. It’s hard not to take my progressively cloudier vision as a metaphor. What other crusty exoskeleton am I building simply by living my life? Am I quicker to worry? To judge? Am I less likely to roll with things?

There’s no quick fix for these accretions. But there are books to read, ideas to explore, and family and friends who will, I hope, point out the ossifications when they appear, if only by an arched eyebrow and a quickly uttered, “are you sure?” I hope these guardrails are in place for me and that I provide them for others.

And then, there are miracles like cataract surgery, this second sight, to remind me to stay loose, stay limber, to look, see, question, and learn.