Shoe P- (Shoopydoop (Shoopydoopydoop))

In which our Hero sits on the stoop and shoes in dup

Both when I told her I needed to do it and later when I told her it was done, something about me polishing my shoes made Nocturne giggle. If it was anybody but her, I’d think I was missing a euphemism of some kind, but when she asked what I was doing and I explained that I was writing an entry about my shoes and read her the first sentence (which has been lovingly reconstructed after a catastrophic laptop crash), she explained.

“It’s funny.”

It might be funny, too. Curiously, despite the fact that shoe polish is abundantly supplied in shoe stores, drug stores, convenience stores and airports, I don’t really see people doing it. My father doesn’t polish his shoes, not when I was younger and certainly not since I started doing it. My friends don’t compare notes about technique or style.

I’m not really as responsible about it as I mean to be, either. The polish this weekend is the first time since last fall which is almost shameful, but shoes are frequently wet and dirty in the winter and there’s always other things to do. But the neglect was starting to really show, and feeling embarrassed about my gear for the last two weeks finally led me to make time to do the dirty deed this past weekend.

“You should take pictures,” she said. So I did. But at some level it’s challenging to take pictures to convey the subtle variations of black so I’m not sure if it accomplished what I meant to. But she enjoyed peeking at the process. And me, I confess, I enjoyed polishing them.

It’s a process, a very simple but slow and careful process. Clean the shoes of dirt and grit, apply a coat of polish and let it reset a little. Buff. And then polish. It’s meditative. I think more of my enjoyment comes from that than from the actual result, as pleasing as it is. Plus I tend to treat myself a little bit, sitting on the doorstep and just taking in the neighborhood as I work.

I like the ritualness of it, I like the care for my gear. I like the way the leather comes to life under my hands. Cleaning reveals the wear of the leather. Applying polish creates a rough, matte black finish that seems to sooth the scratches and faded tan. The buff is my favourite part, when that coarse primer look gives way to a gentle, warm shine, adding depth and shape to the leather.

If I’m in a hurry, I can stop there. The shoes look good, and clean and most of the benefits have been achieved. But the polishing step seems to add an extra something, and also it speaks back to a challenge I’ve been struggling with since I was 14 or so, when I was taught how to shine my boots and how to lace them so that a medic could cut them off conveniently in the case of an injury and the cadence for an about face while marching. And ever since then, without admitting it, my goal has been to achieve the mirror finish that I remember, a liquid shine that almost competes with patent leather.

I still haven’t managed it. But as I work more shoe polish into the surface, I think of the wisdom my corset guy passed on to me from his days as a custom jeweller: Polishing is just the art of making smaller and smaller scratches. It’s become a bit of a zen mantra that helps me not stress in that part of the process when it seems like I’m making the finish worse and not better. As the work progresses, my thoughts wander. I started polishing my shoes and inventing a sci-fi missile system that ended with me suddenly realizing how rotating a bullet or arrow could stabilize the flight path (precession of a gyroscope, baby!)

But a small circle at a time, the soft leather look gives way to a smoother, reflective finish. The result is just a little bit more resistant to wear. The scars and wear are suddenly almost invisible ripples under the sheen. And that shine seems to give them the richness of a living thing.

As I sit and work on my shoes, people pass on the street. Cars going to and fro. Pedestrians heading to the store or bus stop, or returning. A young couple taking their baby for stroll. A robin with a suspicious glare and a squirrel giving me the evil eye.

And the old lady from across the street. She is no longer quite the eye-of-sauron neighborhood watch that she used to be, blinds stirring the moment any body moved anywhere in view of her front window, but I noticed her moving out of the corner of my eye as I was buffing and when she came outside and gestured me over, I got up and went to attend her.

Whereupon, with a small amount of not-entirely english small talk, she proceeded to tell me that her grandson was now married and I need to find myself a nice girl and settle down. They’re a family from a different end of the same country that my parents hail from. A different tradition, a different religion, a different language. But I come from a culture where the neighbors have largely been neighbors are new if they don’t date back to grandfather days, and are pretty much family when they and you grew up families together. Here in the west, we are not so closely knit as that, but they have lived across the street from us for a good twenty years, and she is a friend of my mothers and I will accept my shellacking with grace.

I get notes, when I talk about this stuff, indignant on my behalf, that it’s my life. And it absolutely is. The fact is that I’m going to do what I’m going to do for my own reasons. But I am also aware that however it may also be intrusive and sometimes grating, it is a form of affection. Not as fun as the kind that involved making pie, but I can still make the polite obeisances.

Then she thanked me for letting her scold me, which was sweet of her and funny. I excused myself with a gesture from the old country, and felt fairly satisfied at how it suited. And she went inside and I returned to my polishing.