It never ceases to amaze me that women, and men, like women in shoes that have pointed toes and tall skinny heels. Has anyone ever thought about the physics of this? Push the back of your foot up and your foot slides forward only to encounter a wall of shoe not unlike a horseshoe shaped dam. Like any dam that does not work well, at some point, a ladies foot is going to burst forth, and, like a dam, spill all over what is in front.

Actually, ladies just suffer until they can find a time to take them off. Oh sure, there are some that are reasonable comfortable but those are few and far between. I actually had three pair that I had collected over the years that were wearable. My black ones were so beautiful, slender perfectly balanced heels with the uppers made of ribbed silk. Sometimes I just put those shoes on to wear around the house so I could enjoy how beautiful they were.

Today we got an email with a last minute cruise deal that captured out interest. Spring break is in three weeks and after having gone on a spur of the moment cruise a few years back we always think about the great time we had and the low cruise rate we got. The email today was not that low but it was pretty impressively low. After struggling from lunch until midnight we decided to do it.

We travel a lot for work so have a lot of travel benefits. Even so, traveling is pretty expensive. We have made it our habit to go on a special (more expensive) trip every other year when we can. We did not want to get enured to the special (expensive) trips. On the off years we take special (inexpensive) trips. We usually go camping and have a wonderful, and special, time. This past year was our long camping trip year. We were ready to go when the fire came. In fact, we had expected to do a long weekend to make sure we were all in order for a couple of week trip. I was not feeling well so we decided to stay home. I am sorry that I was not well but I also am grateful that we were here and not camping. We would have felt more helpless than we did.

After the fire we tried to take our camping trip, or even a short one, over and over. Each time we would get near the date to leave and look at each other and just know that we did not want to go. After a few missed opportunities we decided that it was fire-related and we would just let things unfold and they unfolded. We have been to visit family but we have not had a vacation since Christmas before last. For some reason, tonight, we both felt attracted to going on the cruise. We wrestled with ourselves over the money since we are struggling to get the house rebuilt with the new things we want for aging-in-place and some frivolous desires for very slightly fancy bathtub and showers.

We finally decided to commit to it because it was part of our healing that we could even want to do it. This will be our third cruise with Holland America. It is a cruise company with a rather staid tradition without a lot of super water slides and amusement parks on the Lido deck but it suits us just fine. We like to be quiet, rest, read, take a bit of time to see the ports and eat. You can have delivered to your room, any time of the day or night, chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven along with a glass of milk. The best part is that they only bring you two cookies so you can fit into your fancy clothes when it is formal evenings.

Which brings us full circle to silly shoes. My beloved is gallant and lets me hang on for dear life so I don’t fall off of my shoes while it appears that he is attentively escorting the love of his life. Some of that is true. He is the love of my life and I of his for 38 years. He is gallant when he puts his mind to it, especially in a tux. The escorting of me for the beauty of the moment and his knightly duty to protect women and children, really translates to being on time for dinner. If I tumble in the hall, dressed in an evening gown, those pointy toes and pointy heels could get caught in the hem of the dress and take us an hour to get untangled. Gently pull the chiffon to the left to disentangle it from the rhinestone shoe buckle and the right side of the dress hangs up on the heel of the other foot. Add to that one woman rolling around on the floor trying to keep possible covered in some low neck dress and you have an appetizer for dinner that is not appetizing at all.

So, we pray for calm seas and hold on tight to get to dinner with our dignity in tact. I have not fallen on a cruise but I did take a tumble in the grass at a formal party years ago. Pointy heels, evening gowns and grass. Gosh, what a stupid combination. Worse yet, part of my dress was white, the operative here was white. Since then I have always worn darker colors just in case dinner decides to hop off the plate and jump right on top of what my mother called a ladies shelf. That has been useful a few times with fancy dresses and with business suits. I have a colleague who always produces a gorgeous scarf at lunch only to find that she is no longer cold when we get back to meetings.

So, we are making another step out of the fire. We are planning to do something that is just because we want to do it. I don’t quite know how to articulate how the fire affected us that it translated into not wanting to leave a temporary home when we have few things but maybe it is a mix between concern about leaving anything just because something had been lost. More than that, I think, is that there are still bits of fog in our lives. They are not noticeable often because they are rare but the fire left us in a fog and I suppose it is normal and reasonable to wander in it now and again as we rebuild our lives.

I am glad that we are happy about taking this trip. I am glad that we can step out and do something just for fun and to relax. I hope our steps toward this next iteration of recovering from the fire does not involve pointy heeled and toed shoes caught in a chiffon dress. If it does happen like that, I think I will be laughing too hard to get up off the floor.