Big shoes

Cleo's current fashion obsession involves a pair of shoes passed down to her by her stalwart playmate, Quentin - who outgrew, and then shared (with the gentle aid of his mom), the gaudy silver sneakers you see above. And while we don't think that Cleo had actively envied the shoes when they were on Quentin's feet, there's no doubt that she's in love with them now. Cleo big shoes, she earnestly intones, as she works on taking them on and off. Big shoes, she repeats, admiringly, as she clomps around the house like an astronaut on an unfamiliar, distant sphere. Her handsome brown shoes, so reliable for so many months, lie abandoned in a basket; her soft leather slippers are ignored. It's the big shoes that she wants, and no others will do.

Who knows why we choose what we do, and when? I remember with some specificity, and mild embarrassment, my first forays into classical music. At some point in high school, I bought a copy of Dvorak's New World Symphony; shortly after, I paid a few bucks for an LP version of several of Beethoven's symphonies, at a used record store in uptown Chapel Hill. I remember, too, owning a cassette of Holst's The Planets. Predicable, right? It was poppy, accessible music, for the most part, informed by coarse taste and an impressed regard for perceived reputation. But there I was, with Holst in my knockoff Walkman, and Dvorak pouring out of the speakers of our Reliant K. Big music, I might have said; certainly, it felt exciting, in its own way.

And yet we rarely realize, as amateurs, that more educated observers and more refined arbiters of taste are all around us, should be desire their advice. My dad, had I asked him, could have let me know that the titles in my small classical collection were as inevitable as the rows of Rand, Kerouac, and Kundera that line the shelves of college seniors' dorm rooms. And we'd be happy to remind Cleo that her squeaky Carolina shoes can light up a room of surprised diners much more effectively than the blocky, Buck Rodgers-ish footwear she now favors. But what does it matter? Taste and experience, at such moments, are never the issue. In discovering a new vein of material, we don't yet want to be told of its reputation. We'll learn, soon enough, that Holst is not Chopin, and that small shoes have their appeal, as well. That will come, in time. For a few moments, though, everyone simply needs a few uncritical days in their big shoes.