Shoes

Leading workshops as I do, I have needed to spiff up a little bit! I have a pair of black dress shoes that I have been wearing, but lately I've noticed that the toes are getting kind of scuffed. It's been on my to-do list for a while to polish them.

As a teenager, I used to enjoy polishing shoes, my own, my dad's and whoever else in the family needed shoes polished! There was something very satisfying in putting a dab of shoepolish on my cloth, wiping the shoes down and then polishing them up with a soft shoe brush. They would go from dull and dirty to clean and shiny, and this appealed to my sense of organization. It's a wonderful thing to take something and turn it into something beautiful! Perhaps it applies to my creative sense.

But... it's been years since I've polished shoes! I've switched more to Hi-Tec light hikers and suede leather sandles... with nothing to polish. So, when I decided a week ago that my shoes needed polishing, I was a bit rusty. I knew I had a shoe box with supplies in it and once I found it, I was a bit dismayed. There was beeswax (for waterproofing hiking boots), about 3 tins of it! A variety of waterproofing sprays, some spare shoelaces and a couple of tubes of black polish from the shoe store that sold me the dress shoes. Not a shoe brush to be found. Ah well, I thought, how hard can it be to polish with a cloth. So I sat down and wiped on the polish and then tried to polish the shoes with a cloth... Not quite a satisfying shine!!! Perhaps it works for the shoe polishers in the airports, to use just a cloth, but I obviously didn't have the right angle.

So, it was off on a hunt for a shoe brush... After a bit of debating, I decided that Zellers was my best bet... I had never seen shoe brushes there before, but nor had I had been looking for them. Luck was with me and they actually had a modest but comprehensive of shoe polishing supplies, shoe brushes among them. With shoe brush clutched in hand, I left Zellers (after paying!) and drove home to try it out. Ah... that's better... a brush just gives that added bit of kick to the shoe polish and I'm happy to say that my black leather shoes have a very respectable shine on them...

Sometimes, it is good to have the right tools for the job, and this was a case in point. I wonder sometimes how the same applies to our spirits... They too are often in need of a bit of care and attention, a bit of polishing as it were. What are the things that polish our spirit, that give us a bit of shine? Exercise? Meditation? Prayer time?? All of the above. If we don't take care of our selves, we can end up looking and feeling and acting a bit scuffed... Time for a bit of a shine and a polish!!