pieces and ponderings

Sneakers…I love them.  Nikes, Adidas, Puma, New Balance, Reebok, Converse…I’ve worn them all.  My favorite pairs of shoes have always been my tennis shoes, as we called them back in the day.

When I was a child, it seemed that boys’ athletic footwear was much cooler than what was available for girls.  The stuff for girls, in my opinion, looked…well…too girly.  And if you’re playing baseball or football with the boys in the neighborhood, you don’t want to look too girly…at least I didn’t.  I wanted to look cool like they did in their sporty boys’ athletic shoes.

So my mom would let me look for shoes in the boys’ section of the shoe store.  Back then, when I bought a pair of sneakers, my mom and the sales clerk would let me wear the new purchase and put my old shoes in the box.  I would skip or run to our car, certain that my new footwear made me much quicker on my feet.

I remember my first pair of Converse high top sneakers…black with the Converse star in a circle on the side…they were so cool in my eyes.  In shoes like these I could keep up with the guys on the backyard playing field.

I remember a day when I was around nine years old, looking at my mom in her neat shirt dress and pumps, a typical daily outfit for her, and thinking, “I want to be a mom like my mom.  So I guess that someday something magical will happen and I will suddenly enjoy waking up early (because I liked sleeping in), wearing neat shirt dresses with tidy belts, and having pumps or sandals on my now sneakered feet.  Someday, I won’t want to wear my jeans and sneakers any more.”

I grew up and while I do now like waking up early in the morning, and I have owned a few shirt dresses, jeans and sneakers are still very much a part of my life.  Thankfully, athletic footwear for the ladies evolved into styles as cool or cooler looking than the guys’ shoes.

So now, I’m the mom whose favorite shoes are still her sneakers.  They allow me to keep up…well… almost…at least attempt to keep up…with my kids on our front yard playing field.

My newest sneakers.  I love them.

My new sneakers adorning my feet the day after I bought them.  Yes, I’m wearing my sneakers with my pajamas and robe, heading out to photograph the giant lavender flower that mysteriously appeared in our flower bed (see earlier post).