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Karma Free Writing will be offering 27 Days of Karma Free Writing Prompts starting on the 1st day of Spring. These writing prompts are designed to stimulate the creative process for writing your personal story - and beyond.
27 Day Karma Free Writing Prompts - Honorarium
The 1st 14 days are free. To go the whole 27 days there is a $27 honorarium.
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2010
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March
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- DAY #12. THEME: "REVISIT"
- Day #11 - Theme: "For me? You shouldn't have!"
- Day #10. Theme: "Turning Points"
- Day #9 - Theme: "Body Parts Know"
- Day #8. Theme: "I am HEALED!!"
- Day #7 - Theme: "Fun or Fear"
- Day #6. "Buying a pair of shoes."
- Day #5. "That Part Of My Live Is Over Now."
- Day #4. "That which is no longer."
- Day #3. "My Whole Life Was About To Change - I jus...
- Day #2. "Should of, would of, could of ... IF ONLY"
- "Prompt #1 - Things my parents taught me"
- KFWB - 27 Day Writing prompts - Intro
- Tomorrow We Start !!
- Almost there !! Two More Days !!!
- 5 More Days until the 27 Day Karma Free Writing Pr...
- One Week - Saturday March 20th 2010 - The 1st Day ...
- 27 Day "Karma Free" Writing Program set to start M...
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March
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About Me
Sensible. I am a penny pinching poor-mouthing Czech.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we were poor growing up. But we were also tight. Tight doesn't really explain it. My mother would buy the old cheese...the kind that today would not be sold because it had mold on it. She'd bring it home, chop it off and tell us that it was fine because cheese is just mold anyway.
My junior year in college I went to Paris. I was the baby of the family. I got to do things like a junior year abroad. No wonder my sisters hated me.
I had a Eurail Pass.
A Eurail pass is like a gift from the Gods.
My girlfriends and I went to Florence for the weekend. We stayed in a pension that was charming.
It was dirty. At night when the lights went out, billions of roaches roamed the floors.
We got bed bugs.
Franco and Marco worked at the pension. They couldn't speak English or French. We couldn't speak Italian. that was ok.
We drank a lot of red wine.
We walked past one particular store window everyday. In it were the most perfect shoes in the world.
There was a patent leather brown pair and a patent leather black pair. They had one inch heals and a little suede bow on the side at the ankle. They cost a fortune.
We stopped each time we passed and gazed at the shoes. None of us dared to enter and try them on.
We drug Marco and Franco to see them.
We rode the train back to Paris.
I dreamed of the shoes.
We studied, wrote papers, went to museums, ate. It all faded in comparison to the shoes. It was the brown ones I wanted. They had a little sparkle.
Maniane and I decided to go to Switzerland for the weekend. At the train station, I saw a train was just about to go to Florence.
I looked at Marianne and told her to meet me in Zermatt in two days and I jumped on the train to Florence.
I shared my compartment with the most beautiful woman in the world. She was Italian, at least 6'2". She wore 5 inch red heels. She had a mane of long wild hair that purple/red color that French and Italian women use. AND she had a full length beaver coat.
I know it was beaver because she told me. She couldn't speak English or French and I couldn't speak Italian, but she pantomimed a beaver...buck teeth, tail and all.
I got to Florence before the stores were open. I went to the pension. I woke up Marco. We drank esspreso until the shops opened.
I was going to get the shoes. I didn't want it to happen too fast. I needed the event to last...so I made out with Marco.
I strolled to the shop and looked in the window. I wondered if I'd made this too big, to dramatic. Maybe the shoes weren't that good.
My heart skipped a beat. They were more than I remembered.
I took a breath and entered the shop. I tried on the shoes.
Nothing has ever been more perfect.
But, I bought the black ones. They were more sensible.
Merci beaucoup inkydinkyparlezvous, your story is lovely and I feel the same about Florence, it's all about shoes after all ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe shoes that called to me looked like shoes a wealthy, shoe-loving witch would wear. Black, pointy toes, laces up the front, a two inch heel. High enough to make a leg look good, but not too high to dash through O'Hare to catch a flight.
ReplyDeleteThe best part was that you could put red leather laces in when the black ones seemed too sedate. Be a bad-ass witch on those days.
So I bought the too-big shoes with the too-big price tag and set my mind on wearing them. I had to get my money's worth.
The first day I wore them I walked down a busy downtown Boston street and a gaggle of African-American teenage girls started screaming at me and pointing at my feet.
"Those are some kind of shoes," they hollered and laughed and marveled.
Yes indeed I thought striding down the street, ignoring the beginning of a blister.
A week later the witches shoes marched into the intensive care room where my father was hooked up to all kinds of machines blipping and buzzing. Mum and my sisters were there too.
What do you talk about in a hospital room with death and doom hanging on the ceiling like bats during the day?
"Check these shoes out," I said.
The oohs and ahs were plentiful. My father, hooked up on oxygen, couldn't say much but he peered down at the shoes, rolled his eyes and smiled.
The shoes were a good distraction, keeping us focused on looking good when things were looking bad.
I never wore the shoes after that. They were so beautiful and soft, the leather like an 18-month old baby's soft skin. But they hurt like hell.
I needed shoes that would take me places, not just get attention. Attention is fleeting. Really gorgeous shoes should power you to march on and on.
This past fall I was back in the city on the east side to give a speech at the United Nations. As we motored up the FDR, I smiled and thought about how the city never really changes. After the speech a few of us gathered for lunch near the Roosevelt Tram and then after lunch I took a stroll down 1st Avenue. The neighborhood seemed familiar and then, out of nowhere I felt a shock run through my feet, up my spine and into my ears, I somehow remembered my wingtips. I looked to my right and there was the same storefront that had existed 25 years earlier. I entered, an electronic signal echoed in the shop and a small man came to the counter to greet me.
ReplyDelete“Picking up -dropping off?” The man asked abruptly.
“Uh…hello… this may seem strange, and I’m just going to take a shot here, I was in a long, long time ago and had dropped off a pair of shoes to get resoled, again this was about 25--“
The man cut me off.
--“Black wingtips?”
“YES!”
--“Size 12? Leather resoles?”
“YES!”
--“Day after tomorrow.”
I’d been dancing and doing gymnastics since I was four and my calves were really muscular and developed. Mom & I went shopping for a pair of boots for the winter months in Iowa. I found the cutest pair of brown boots with a zipper up the side. The salesman brought me my size and I slipped my foot into the boot. So far so good. Then I went to pull the zipper tab and zip the boot, but I couldn’t get it zipped even halfway up when it caught my skin and made me wince. There was no way that zipper was going to budge. My calf was in the way. My calves were just too big for these boots. We tried a few more pairs, but nothing fit. By this point I was pretty upset. It was embarrassing. I needed a pair of boots and wanted them to be stylish. The salesman didn’t know what to do except keep bringing out other options for me to try. When my eyes started to well up, my mom came up with a great idea. “Why don’t we buy the boots you really like and take them to a shoe repair store and have them add more material.” “They can do that?” I asked through the lump in my throat. “I don’t see why not,” my mother said with confidence. So the salesman rang up the boots on his store register, put the box in a bag, and sent us on our way, happy that he was able to make a sale.
ReplyDeleteThe shoe repair guy added a piece of matching elastic and he did it in a way that made the boots look like they had come that way. It was a great solution and I had a pair of boots that I loved. It’s funny though. Every time I try on a pair of boots, to this day, I hesitate as I zip them, wondering if I’ll be able to get them over my calves. But I haven’t had that problem since I was twelve. And I have all kinds of boots in all different colors and styles. I love boots!
Lois, I love that your father smiled when he saw your boots at the hospital. I want to hear more about your relationship with him. And that time in the hospital. Those shoes sound awesome!
ReplyDeleteThe best pair of shoes I ever owned were no shoes. Digging my toes into the Natasket Beach sand, running through soft grass in my parent's yard, soaking them in the warm pool water in Southern California, watching my toes turn blue when at 30 I tried to put them into the cold Atlantic, having my toes licked and sucked before making love, painting the nails different colors, the beach on Maui right outside my condo, self massaging them...fuck shoes.
ReplyDeleteInkydinky,
ReplyDeleteI loved the flavor of your story and especially the detail about the woman pantomiming the buck-toothed beaver to define her coat! Lois, yes on the way we buy shoes that look sooooooooo good and then never wear them again because they hurt so bad.
Skull Swinger, you made me smile.
And Lois, what a smart, kind mom to get those modifications made! Boots are the best...it's just sad when they finally bite the dust and can't be repaired even one more time.
I don’t understand all the hoopla surrounding shoes.
ReplyDeleteFinding a pair that actually fits well is a trial
They may pretend to fit in the store
but when you get them home they turn on you and torture you
like small paper cuts that you get when opening bills
And then there are heels...
They can take you to a different level
Allow you to believe things about yourself that you know aren’t true
but at least you can pretend
then kick them off and breathe a sigh of relief
ah yes, my real life....
athletic shoes
the racing stripes
the triple maxx cushioning system that helps pronators
supinate
I pretend that I am a runner
or a very fast walker
I have 5 different pairs
I like to get them on sale at Kohl’s
with a coupon
sandals
like having a convertible car
without the expense
but the best shoes
are no shoes at all
Loving the community that's developing here in just 6 days. How generous folks are at sharing their stories and kind words of encouragement. Wish I live on the left coast to meet so many of you on April 19.
ReplyDeleteI remember one story though that involved, of all things, Clogs, yes clogs. I had this girlfriend Liz or Leeza as she liked to be called. She was half English, her Father used to be the Chief Purser on the Queen Mary when it was in service, and half Greek. Her Mom was a Greek peasant girl who her father the suave sailor met in port. Very romantic. She looked like Helen of Troy, stunning, and he was an English Officer on her Majesty's Grand Ocean liner and their offspring was Elizabeth (go figure), or Liz or Leeza as she liked to be called. Liz had that classic Greek profile, stunning and an English accent and an English sense of humor, and I was smitten. She ignored me for months. We were just friends, until one day, when we went shopping for clogs. How random. I never knew the clog thing was an angle. She wanted to go to Clogmaster on La Brea, so like the good-sport friend I was, I went along and we both bought special order clogs from Denmark. Okay. It was when the Clogs arrived and we tried them on at her place and the guy she had been kind-of dating apparently came by and saw us through the front window bonding while trying on our clogs that something happened. He got jealous and called her and told her " I saw you with 'that guy' and you looked very close and happy. What's going on"? She said "nothing is going on" but then realized what he had said was true. We were close and happy. I was already love-struck but it was those clogs that were the turning point for her. We were together for years. I wonder what ever happened to those clogs? I wonder what ever happened to Liz or Leeza?. Ah, the girl with the face that could have launched a thousand ships.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteShoes…..
ReplyDeleteVan’s. I Loved my pretty little white slip-on vans tennis shoes. They went with everything! Shorts, dresses, jeans and you could wear them everywhere. Movies, school, dinner, parties the beach.
I would wear them until they wore out. At first they would just get a little dirty. I could just throw them in the washing machine and with the help of a little bleach my pretty little white vans tennis shoes were as good as new. Then they would get dirty AND stinky and still I washed them. I had to make them last. After several washings the bleach just didn’t do the trick. The dark stains began to set in and the white faded to a murky gray. What happen to my pretty little white van’s slip-on tennis shoes? What could I do to make the new again? I know! Shoe polish. On went the bright white shoe polish. Wow, that worked well, they looked good, not like new, but good enough. Still a little stinky but they were passable. I though I’ll just wash them more. Then came the holes in the toes. And time for new shoes.
I went to visit my father the weekend after the holes appeared and asked for a new pair. No, he said I can’t afford them. But I saw some knock-offs at Super K and they had them on sale just $7… I continued to plead my case. I‘ve been putting shoe polish on them for months and they’re stinky and see I have holes in the toes. As I lifted my foot up for him to see. No, he said I can’t afford them.
We went shopping at Super K that evening to buy some grocery’s and his perfect girlfriend came with us. As we were at the checkout she slipped one last item into the basket. I looked at her and I looked at my dad. She looked at him as if the say… this is something we need to buy. He just nodded, as if to say… ok you’re right. I felt my heart beat I didn’t say a word.
When we got back to her house I waited with anticipation to see what she would do with them.
She hung her three ugly $7 baskets on the wall of her kitchen. Decoration she said.
Hmm … I have a lot of shoes now. I wonder why?
Wow.. I'm late to the party. These posts are amazing!!!
ReplyDelete___
Shoes, shoes, shoes… and more shoes! I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Plus, I was getting paid to do this? It was surreal. Not the shoe modeling part. After all anything is possible in The City, right? Especially when it comes to shoes.
It was the way the models loved shoes too.
An image of Carrie Bradshaw, worshiping a window storefront, featuring an exquisite pair of shoes, on a pedestal in a decorated window crystallizes. Well, for this one day that was actually my life. On Madison Avenue, in a perfect boutique high rise, that was really more of a brownstone, but fancier.
This was serious business. But I digress. The shoes!
Each floor hosted a different designer and their shoes. There were stages and the "models" (that was us though we couldn’t get used to that term) walked a quick mini catwalk. The buyers from places like Nordstrom congregated around tables filled with shoes.
I took the escalator and was switched to a different designer. I felt the disappointment in the ooohhs and aahhs around me when models were given their assignments. But I was a happy camper. I was among shoes. Later they even fed us sushi.
By the end of the day though I was sick of putting on and taking off shoes in a hurry. Why was everyone taking this so seriously? I had never looked at my feet this much in my life. How boring. And, all the questions. Do the shoes feel right around the ankle? How do your toes feel on the side? On the inside? Can you walk back and forth again please?
I agreed to do a few more shoe shows for my friend the realtor/actress/agent. I admired her style and grace. Her beautiful eccentricity suited mine perfectly.
But, honestly, all the free sample shoes in Manhattan didn’t ever last as long as my beautiful Italian leather, red velvet lined boots that I bought myself for my 19th Birthday in Switzerland. But, that’s another story for another day..
Lois, I know how you feel. I've been regularly hunting for cheap airfare since the community reunion was announced..
ReplyDeleteLove all the stories... shoes, who knew.
ReplyDeleteI read the prompt this morning and said, shoes, trauma, huh? Then promptly forgot about writing.
I remembered late in the day, hum... trauma...
and then it hit me, my first bra, the one I begged mom to buy me for years before she finally gave in.
Mom was practical, kinda like me and my shoes.
There’s barbed wire looped around the top of the fence surrounding this hotel. It doesn’t make me feel great about being in Jakarta. I’ve been traveling alone for two weeks, and it’s getting hard to keep myself together.
ReplyDeleteI go for a swim, and it helps, but it’s too hot to sit by the pool afterward, so I come up to my room.
I forgot my sandals down by the pool. Though I don’t feel like seeing people, I go back down to get them. They’re the only shoes I have with me—I’m traveling light.
My sandals aren’t where I left them. I plan how to act out my request with body language as I look around for an employee. I finally locate the pool guard, who speaks a little English. He shakes his head. No. No shoes were found by the pool.
But they’re my only shoes. The ground is red hot. How am I going to go out barefoot into this rough neighborhood to look for shoes?
Back in my room, I collapse on the bed. I start crying, and I can’t stop. I don’t know where I am or who I am. There are two huge batiks on the walls of my hotel room, underwater scenes with bright gold and purple fish. If I attach myself to the fish, maybe I won’t go crazy. I hear myself sobbing out loud, “I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.”
I cry myself into exhaustion, into emptiness. Finally, a bubble of courage rises in me, and I go down to the front desk and call Mary’s friend, Yuli, who lives in Jakarta. When she comes to the hotel, I tell her what happened. She goes down to the pool and comes back ten minutes later with my sandals. They’ve been tightened to fit much smaller feet than mine. The pool guard, she says, had given them to his sister.
I put on my sandals, and Yuli takes me to the airport. Although we arrive two hours before my flight is scheduled to take off, Garuda Airlines has sold my seat, so Yuli takes me home for dinner with her family. She drives me back to the airport later in the evening. She has called her friends in Denpasar, and they pick me up at the airport at midnight. They take me home with them, and in the days that follow, this generous family gives me Bali, and Bali gives me a glimpse of heaven.
Who knew shoes could make such wonderful stories!!!!! I love everyone of these!
ReplyDeleteI want to know more about this April 19 party because I too want to come!!! Big airfare deals right now...or ROADTRIPPPPPPPPPPPPP. Anybody live near Austin?
Hi Jan! Good to see you here. Wonderful story - how interesting shoes can be a part of our travels, our lives.
ReplyDeleteChris
Here is my story. I have fallen behind I am ashamed to say. I hope you notice.
ReplyDeleteBuying a pair of shoes.
I last bought a pair of shoes in Montreal. September 2008. It had just rained. My impeccable San Francisco dress shoes with their leather soles had started to leak. I do confess to a shoe fetish, although I am a man. My fetish does not manifest itself in a frenzy of acquisition, but in a paean of utilization. I adore shoes I can wear for years, a reverie of comfort in impeccable style.
I’d first arrived in Montreal that February, and as I looked for shoes that fall, I knew what the weather would have in store. I’d strolled to the top of le Mont Royale in the frosty February air, my footwear a pair of deprecated REI high-top hikers I’d bought out of necessity for a road trip in the summer of 2006. Light and airy, yet tough and supportive for hiking. Less substantial than my beloved La Sportiva Makalus, which are stiff enough to take a crampon and have carried me to the top of Shasta more than half a dozen times, yet sturdy enough to hike the southern ranges of the Rocky Mountains that extend down into Northern New Mexico. These deprecated hikers took me to columbines and high forests of aspen, and gorgeous cutthroat trout in the upper drainages of the Pecos river. Lake Katharine. 11,000 feet. Those boots were cheap enough I didn’t mind using them to ride my motorcycle. The abuse a left foot takes from changing gears will destroy a pair of sneakers in half an hour. Though I do remember that trip I tooled around Santa Fe; on my motorcyle, searching for the ultimate crispy taco, wearing only shorts and Tevas. My feet did not thank me for that.
That February morning, in those deprecated hikers, the lug soles slipped on the hard ice as I navigated Olmstead’s winding pathway to the top of le Mont.
So I found myself gazing into the window of the Ecco store on la Rue St Catherine. Catherine. Siena. Catherine. My daughters’ name. A name of grace that forms a thread that runs through my travels, my life, my shoes. I think of her, her sweet daughter-mother spirit. I smile and go inside.
The perfect shoes.
Stylish, black, square-toed, long and elegant.
Gore-tex, waterproof, high-top lace-ups.
Subversive hikers for the investment firm where I was consulting.
Flat rubber soles. maximum contact.
Maximum traction as I navigate the steep and icy sidewalk between the office and my pied-a-terre in le Vieux Port.
Such bliss.
Comfort.
Style.
Subversion. I catch the senior VP of Finance. She gives my footwear a quizzical eye, as I push back from the table, concluding the meeting.
I stroll back to my desk.
I smile.
or boots
ReplyDeleteAre they comfortable?
I'll buy a pair of shoes
wood is good
They will support me
They will become part of me
Buying a pair of shoes, to me,
is a relationship of comfort
We will work together very well
Lois & BloodRedRoses- I hope you can find an inexpensive airfare that will allow you to come to the gathering!
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what shoes scarred me for life, not that that was the prompt. But, in fact, I’ve never recovered. Can you feel my pain? First, I have big ass feet. Size fourteen. I oughta be seven feet tall. I’m not. Anyway, I’m ten, maybe eleven and buying shoes was already traumatic from the size of my feet, er water skis, boats, 2x4’s, I’d heard it all. But I wanted these tennis shoes, these cool bad ass white Adidas imitations (we couldn’t afford the real thing) with three black stripes on the side. Pure white. Bitchin’ rides. I knew the other kids would fall on their asses with jealousy the minute they laid eyes on my kicks. So step-mom takes me to Sacto – to end my begging – to some factory looking shoe joint. They were new back then. The factory joints. No Broadway Shoe store back then. It was in South Sacto off Florin road by the Florin Road Mall but it wasn’t actually in the mall. It was outside the mall where the black kids shopped. We took the Pinto wagon up there after school. I try these white sky puppies on, like Cadillac’s for my Cadillac’s. Oh, yes, I must have these shoes. Step-mom shells out twelve bucks or so, we box them up and I cradle them like a newborn all the way to the car, the drive home, like a pillow in my bed. My precious shoes made of gold. Wait till I play kickball in these, oh, yeah, I planned to use them not just look at them. No such thing as pure white hip-hop tennies back then. You bought shoes, you wore them, used them, beat their asses into the ground. I got home that night and wore them around the house. But step-mom kept questioning the shoes, like a white trash attorney, the whiteness of them. We lived in the country. Everything in the country is perpetually covered in dirt. “Hell, they’ll be all black in a week” she says. “How the hell you gonna split wood in those?” my dad says upon seeing them. “I’m not,” I say. “Then why’d the hell you buy ‘em?” he says, “I paid for ‘em,” step-mom chimes in like that’s some kind of fucking accomplishment. I’m frickin’ ten, alright, when I get a job I’ll buy my own damn shoes so both of you can shut the fuck up, but for now I’m on scholarship. The voice creeps in anyway. Her voice. See, step-mom had tried to talk me into a pair of those square toed cowboy boots, you know, the ones with the leather strap and round buckle on the side. Oh, yeah, the kind my dad wears but without the buckle. They came back circa 1990 and every dip-shit was wearing them. Not me. Won’t to this day. Crap on them first. I wake up the next morning and sellers’ remorse has dug its heels into my skull. Sure, they’ll get dirty. No, I can’t wear them out back shooting muskrats or splitting wood or mowing the lawn. They’ll turn brown, black or green. What the hell am I going to do with them… then? At breakfast I announce that I intend to take them back and get the Dingo boots or whatever the hell they’re called. My dad nods, good choice. Step-mom, Carol, says, “I told you.” My sister shakes her head at me like I’m a pussy. After school Carol takes me back to Sacto and the factory shoe joint by the mall where I trade in my beloved white kicks for a shit-kicking pair of kicks. I wear them everyday to school and hate every second of it. Playing kickball and chasing kids around the yard with lead shackles. What the hell was I thinking?
ReplyDeleteI meant, "buyer's" remorse. That's what I was thinking.
ReplyDelete