My roommate was one of the cleanest people I have ever met. She says she enjoys cleaning and I have been blessed so many times over by that love. But one thing she did that I never understood was clean her shoes. We live somewhere where your shoes and feet and constantly dirty. I can understand why people here clean their feet before going into a place of worship or to pray. I always wondered, "Why bother washing your shoes? As soon as you leave, they will be dirty again."
Slowly I saw the wisdom in washing your shoes though. Not only do they last a bit longer, but you want to wash off some of the dirty, remove the layers, even if they will get caked again. Before I leave the country each summer, I have started to wash all my shoes. The water is absolutely disgusting when I finish!
This last time, as I washed, I began thinking about all the different places I had walked and visited. Each a different kind of dirt. And I wrote a bit of a poem about it:
Tuesday
I washed my shoes
The gray fabric dirty from
Days
Weeks
Years
The brush just began to scratch off the
Surface stains
The salt crystalized along the edge
From May
In the salty desert
Gray sludge from
Thursday
When the streets flooded
The suds massage into the fabric
Causing red dirt to bleed out
From last summer
Walking down those dirt roads
I pick gravel out of the sole
Along with some shells
These shoes will never be
New again
Fresh
White
Crisp and clean
As I scrub away the months
Weeks
Days
Years of memories
The water turns murky
And deep scars remain.