goodbye, blue shoes

fall, like every season, comes with discarding things - the easiest route to experiencing loss and renewal within the safety of my apartment. and now it's time for my pretty, small blue shoes to go. whoever knows me will know that my silly attachment to objects is a byproduct of my minimalism - i don't have much stuff, i feel overwhelmed when i accumulate too much, but i do treasure every item i've got, the longer it stays with me. and of course everything has a story.

five years ago, beginning of fall 2012. we were all so young. my husband had just arrived in canada, unbeknownst to me of course, as i had recently moved back to romania and to cluj. i had a fringe!! my "underachiever" t-shirt still fit me! it was still obama's first term! i could not speak spanish or bake cookies to save my life! i still didn't know people who are dear friends today. my residency application was lost somewhere in a pile in a mississauga office corner. and for these darling shoes, it was their first outing in the world. i actually bought them specifically for this daytrip i took with my friends beginning of september. i had come from montreal with a bunch of very good sandals and elegant-y heeled shoes and soft leather things adequate for city walks, but no "sports shoes" whatsoever. and i am really bad at sports shoes, because i do zero sports, duh! so my approach was to choose them by color (i would do exactly the same with a car, what!). these shoes are Marelbo, bought in downtown cluj, i forget the price but for sure it was the equivalent of under 25$. in the picture they were so squeaky new and shiny!

fast forward to 2016. i wore these shoes a lot! obviously they go well with jeans - but also because they look very small (i wear a 7, these might be 37 european size, but they do look smaller) i can wear them with skirts/dresses and leggings and still look dainty-ish. in montreal, their "season" has been april to november pretty much, and they're clearly not the type of shoe you have to try hard to match. this picture is beginning of spring, and i chose it because b. liked it at the time - and he also likes these shoes a lot.

and then they got old, in shoe years, and somehow got demoted to work shoes this spring/summer (my other work shoes died, and also since i'm so good with burning/spilling things, i don't dare wear open sandals in the kitchen). but they still got to go to vancouver on holiday with me, because they're light and easy to pack, so they were my serious-shoes-in-case-of-rain while there. it's not that their dusty look bothers me, that can be remedied with a good scrub - but recently both their soles broke, besides being so worn out already that they're tilted funny. i don't think there's much that a cobbler can do to prolong this agony past a couple of months, so i will put them in the street. based on my silly criteria when i bought them, i hadn't had great expectations - but they turned out to be some of the bravest shoes i owned. and now their watch has ended.