The remains

While driving down yet another polluted, overcrowded freeway this weekend, I came across a site that never fails to bring a tear to my eye. Like so many times before I bore witness to the discarded of society. While it is inevitable that in a large populated society we should leave behind and discard that which we once held so dear, must we then ignore it's existence? Have we become so desensitized to it that we now pass by without giving it a second thought? While that seems to be the case for so many others, I refuse to fall into that particular rut (I have ruts of my own that I have yet to fully explore.)

As I was saying, I witnessed this atrocity of man, which I am sure you have seen too, the lone shoe on the side of the highway. Yes, this is so very common, and easy to ignore, I cannot bring myself to do so. The lone shoe. Where did it come from, who would have abandoned the poor sole, and where pray tell has it's sole mate gone?

Why is it always one shoe by itself? While one might say that it came from a moving car, and the other shoe was thrown out further down the road, I have rarely found it's equal. And what kind of person throws a shoe from a moving car anyway? Did they no longer have use for only one of their shoes? Did the shoe wrong them? And again I ask, where is it's match? I mention the other shoe because this is the most curious part of the road shoe phenomenon.

Shoes as we know come in pairs. It is a reflection of our biology, two feet, two shoes. In this way it is reflective of who we are in a biological, and physical sense. So to see a shoe, alone, absent of it's foot, and it's partner is rather unnerving. At first when I began to attempt to rationalize this occurrence, I thought, maybe it was purchased by a man with only one foot. After all, what use could he have for two shoes, while he has but one foot? Maybe he bought a pair of shoes, and threw out the one he had no use for while driving home with his purchase. This theory though, contains two major flaws. One, many people with only one natural foot have an artificial replacement that would require a shoe, and secondly, the road shoe is never new.

I later realized that it is futile for me to try and solve this puzzle. I never saw a person throw out a shoe on the highway, nor do I need to. The how is not important, what is important is what I can do to help. I have come to the realization that I have seen the lone shoe occurrence in only one other situation, yard sales. Often at yard sales I have seen lone shoes, and wondered why anyone would sell only one shoe. Now I know. They had two shoes, and some vandal had stolen one, realizing this was a very silly thing to do, then threw it out the car window while making his escape.

The shoes owner could not bear to part with his remaining shoe, in the hopes he would one day recover the other. As time passed, he would lose hope. Still, while loving his shoe, he could not just throw it away, but opted to find it a good home, and tried a last ditch attempt by giving it a good home with some patron of yard sales.

So now, I collect road shoes, and take them with me to yard sales in the hope of reuniting them with their partners. While there is little glory or reward in this act, I feel it is in some small way a public service. So I implore you all, don't just pass that shoe by on the side of the road, in an act of good faith, take it in, and reunite it with the only other out there that is made to be by it's side.

You never know when karma will strike.