Scarlet. Vermilion. Ruby. Cherry. Cerise. Crimson. Oh, the colors that grab us and make us their own.
You know it. I know it. The question is, do we hide it or flaunt it?
We all have obsessions — some more than others of course (ahem) — and for the most part, they’re harmless and fun. Let’s face it, if you have a passion, it’s never a one-time deal. You’re definitely, without the skinniest skinny of a doubt, going back for more.
It was exhibition time, and this month it was our turn to choose, our turn to flaunt, perhaps even our turn to be a bit naughty, and we were three girls at the ready.
We named this show Accidental Obsessions, because at some point, aren’t they all? Right before you just can’t get enough.
“Accidental” is an interesting word, isn’t it? I can’t help wondering where the line is between truly “accidental” and “planned in obsessive detail over at least two thirds of my entire life.” I’ve known a lot of shoe girls over the years, and no wonder — they strike the eye like wildfire.
I’ll quickly admit that the photos to the right look vaguely like something from a murder scene. Red has no bounds, and still we gasp and grab.
P.S. This display was created by Ciel Gallery in Charlotte several years ago as a teaser for an art exhibition. We drove to the nearest Goodwill and bought all the red shoes we could find, painted a few extras, and put on our Come Hither looks. A totally delicious evening!
Balk all you want about the agonies of airline travel, the bitch of baggage, the crunch of crowds, or the plethora of peddlers trying to pawn off umbrellas in the rain, but travel rocks.
Sure the first day is an overload of exhaustion, logistics, and deer-in-the-headlights incomprehension of the local ways of doing things. Or in many cases, simply not doing things. Because, you know, there’s so much to celebrate, to savor, to explore, to talk about — who cares about schedules? If you’re thinking Romans, you’re oh so very helplessly wrong. But once you throw your own expectations and habits out the window, it gets pretty damn interesting.
If Travel Season isn’t quite upon us, it’s knocking on the door. Have you made plans? Picked a country? A city? Five cities? Five countries? You’re my Girl!
Things I Learned in Rome, or Travel Tips for the Squeamish, by Pam
1. Relax. The hardest thing I’ve had to do on this trip is gut it up to open the prosecco bottle by myself. It didn’t kill me.
2. Rent an apartment instead of a hotel room. More for your money, room to spread out, the option to eat in (or have a pre- or post-dinner Prosecco at the ready, and best of all, it’s yours.
3. Reserve a room with a tub. You’ll be glad.
4. Prearrange a car from the airport to your hotel/apartment. You don’t want to be hauling-too-much-luggage while trying to find the right train unless you’re 22 and tireless. You’ll still be tired. Reserve the car.
5. Bring at least one pair of shoes that you can walk in for 10 hours a day, and the bandaids to go with them. Good bandaids. Strong bandaids. Bandaids with as much cushion as you can scare up. Keep the bandaids right next to the American Express (as in, don’t leave home . . .). NOTE: And yes, you CAN stack 10 bandaids between a blister and a shoe. Ask me how I know.
6. Find the closest grocery store the first day. You’re sure to need something, and you probably won’t know the Italian/French/Croation word for shower cap. Knowing the closest pharmacy will also be useful.
7. Don’t bother learning to pronounce Arrivederci. The go-to phrase when leaving a shop is Grazie-Ciao-ByeBye-Buona Sera-NightNight. Apparently in Italian-speak, this is one word.
8. Don’t worry about what’s going on at home. Stuff will happen. It will get taken care of. And you’ll come home with a clearer perspective — and the travel bug.
9. Mornings and evenings are the best time to wander. Fewer tourists, less noise, and the locals you run into will be doing interesting things, like scrubbing down the step into a cafe, polishing a crate of tomatoes, or setting out tools in their workshop.
10. There is much less crime in Europe, and people out walking at all hours. Take a deep breath and look around; you are so much safer here than in the US. It feels good, free.
11. WARNING: There have been a few moments on this most recent trip to Italy that have made me wonder if my traveling days are coming to an end. I can pretty much sum up those moments in one word: Cobblestones.
I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Italians don’t really use grout, do they? Add a few centuries of freeze/thaw cycles and it’s increasingly rare to find two contiguous stones at the same height. So I should have anticipated that navigating the streets/sidewalks/lanes is less an act of walking and more a sort of calculated selection and tentative toeing from one 3″ x 3″ island to the next. But hey, if the Italians can do it in heels, and they do, then I can find a way.
12. Which brings me back to my son’s mantra: It’s All About the Shoes.
As we hobbled out of the Blumenthal in ill-advised but oh-so-lovely shoes, my 20-year-old daughter said, “I’ll never again in my life see such incredible bodies.”
I’m pretty sure she was right.
Leaving another fabulous Alvin Ailey performance, I couldn’t help feeling oddly surprised that we weren’t flying. After all, we’d just seen irrefutable evidence that humans do, indeed, take to the air in dizzying, boundless, lighter-than-air flight.
The highlight of the evening was Twyla Tharp’s frenetic choreography set to David Byrne’s score in The Golden Section. If you thought Talking Heads was a wet finger in the socket, wait til you see thirteen dancers moving together with exquisite precision, AND performing thirteen separate simultaneous dances. Premiered in 1983, the thrill and adrenaline rush of this piece is as addictive as Ben and Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide.
I was 28 when I finished my last dance class and switched to yoga, knowing that I was never going to be another Twyla Tharpe. Linda Celeste Sims, pictured above, danced ravenously for two hours, her own balls able to eject from the wood floor with muscles as powerful as a spring-loaded board. Me? I struggled to walk two blocks in heels. My wimp quotient is boggling.
Not only was I never going to be a dancer, but I was actually struggling to walk in shoes. And there we were — inching down from the sixth level of the parking garage with improper footwear, the balls of my feet straining in agony on the clutch.
But it was okay — it was temporary, and I had just spent an evening in paradise that I’ll never forget.
Oh yeah, and about those incredible bodies . . . .
I was six when I first slid my pinkies into the much-more-comfortable soft leather ballet flats and learned to lie on my tummy, arch my back, and touch my head to my toes.
I was a young teenager when Edward Villella made it clear that dancers were the most highly trained athletes, their own leaps and relevés far above the ball-tossing hordes.
I was seventeen when I saw Judith Jamison dance Cry, an exhausting and emotional fifteen minute solo that burned her mind-boggling image into the eyes of dancers worldwide.
I was twenty-something when Robert Blake (while he was still cute and crime-free), leaned over toward Johnny Carson and said, “Marry a dancer. Sex doesn’t get better than that.”
Apparently not.
Linda Celeste Sims had danced ravenously for two solid hours, her own balls apparently able to eject herself from the wood floor with muscles as powerful as a spring-loaded board. The best I did was walk two blocks in heels, and I whined.
My wimp quotient is boggling. But I will ALWAYS love to dance.
Pam Goode Writes 