Babies are born with creases on their hands. As they grow the lines may change, deepening or lengthening or getting cut by a scar, but they are there from birth. Some people read fortunes from such lines, predicting people’s life events and lifespans.
Shoes, on the other hand, develop their lines with use. Their leather or cotton starts off smooth. One can run a finger across the top of a new shoe and feel no ridges. Just unblemished newness.
With a million and more steps representing a thousand and more journeys, that newness fades. The footwear develops scuffs and tears, perhaps mirroring its owner’s hard work and hardships through their shared journey. Over time the shoes develop soul – to add to their sole – until such time as a further clean or an extra layer of boot polish can’t mask the degradation that makes them impractical and unusable. At which time they are either repaired or thrown out.
Each journey begins with one small step, the first of many that will mark a pair of shoes and show its travelling history.
Lifelines are as unique as the individuals who sport them, each of them telling their own individual journey, narrating their story…if only we can read them.
Annabel Harz: Author and Artist 