Shoes

So I washed ALL of my shoes tonight, by hand with lots of soap and water. I don't know if it's just me, but I have never washed my shoes before. In the states, maybe I would wipe them off with a wet cloth if they got spilled on, but they never called out to me, that they really needed to be washed. I once said that living here was like camping in hell. At the time I was being dramatic and rash, and mostly trying to make a point about a heat here ( it truly gets at least as hot has hell here, if not hotter) but that statement was more prophetic that I knew. The point about the heat was accurate, but the camping wasn't that far off. Think of how muddy and dusty your shoes get when you camp. I don't know why it never occurred to me to notice how filthy my shoes were getting, but it only makes sense. Most roads here are dirt, so it is just dusty and muddy and just dirtier than the states, and when I looked at my shoes, I mean REALLY looked at my shoes, I was SHOCKED!

So I pulled out the toothbrush that we never use, and the brush I use to scrub jeans by hand, and really went to town on my shoes. Not just the plastic ones, not just the cloth ones, the leather and the suede, I submerged them all, and scrubbed more dirt off them than I even knew was there. It was a sophisticatedkind dirt that had joined with the sweat of my feet ( are you disgusted? I was.) to form a film of I don't even know what, that accumulated so gradually that I didn't even notice that it was happening. When I started scrubbing and saw what came off, I almost stopped breathing. How was I walking around in such filth without even noticing?

Well they are clean now, all hanging neatly in a row. The whole ordeal made me think. I washed 15 pairs of shoes. Most of my neighbors have ONE pair of shoes. The worst part isn't even the 15. It's the 30 pairs, at least, that I left in Florida, and the other probably 20 that are at my mothers in Utah. Ok, so I have too many shoes, and I should be donating them to all the people here who don't have any. AND it made me think about what different mentality I had before I moved to Mexico. I didn't even know how disposable I thought everything was. NEVER would it have occurred to me to wash leather jesus cruiser sandals after wearing them until they made my feet stink, and looked so worn out. I would have just bought new shoes. Well tonight, I washed these OLD suckers up, and they will still go another ten thousand miles. I have had them for like six years already, but they will still go. Things are more washable than I ever thought.

So tonight I had a good time washing shoes on the roof, hanging them on the line with clothes pins, and watching life be reborn into shoes that have given more than any shoes I have ever owned and loving that they still have lots more to give.

I guess that is what it is all about. Learning to go in ways you never thought you could. Giving after you thought you were spent. Pretty applicable, since we found out two days ago that our appeal to the denial of our visa, was indefinitely denied. Our small window of hope of going home before ten years is up was closed by Mr. Chertoff in the department of Homeland Security, despite Senator Hatch's many efforts in our behalf. So now unless the house and the senate pass some reform that will help us, we are looking at the next nine years in Mexico. So not the outcome I expected. I am surprising peaceful. What can we do? Just wash our shoes and keep walking.