Shoes are not trivial!
First on in the morning are my pink plastic sandals because our concrete floor is cold. Then I go outside wearing my walking shoes or hiking boots. I come back and work in the garden in my gardening shoes. I play volleyball or take the grandkids to the park wearing my athletic shoes. I go shopping and wear my nicer casual shoes. I go out to dinner or to church wearing my heels, or if it’s cold, my long boots.
In one day it’s easy to wear six or seven different pairs of shoes. How can I choose only two pairs, one to wear and one in the backpack? I can’t wear hiking boots to the opera! I can’t wear my walking shoes in the shower if it’s grungy. I need … I need … I need to leave some of them behind. But which ones?
Will my lifestyle be stunted, my backpack overflowing --
Because I also need a change of clothes, an extra sweater, toiletries, a bed sack (for hostels), notepaper, drawing pencils, etc. It’s going to be cold sometimes. It’s going to rain. It’s going to occasionally be sunny. Layers, on and off, colorful and bland. But still light enough to keep the backpack under 11 pounds.
After five weeks of wearing pretty much the same clothes, I expect to feel like I did after each pregnancy – hating all my pregnant clothes. Ready to make a bonfire of my T shirts and watch them turn to cinders. What if I buy some new ones in Aix en Provence? This trip is all about going cheap, so that might be cheating.
Solution: I could buy new T-shirts on the pretense that they were presents for friends who just happen to be my size. Then I could wear them to test how they’d work for those friends!
That's fine for clothes. For shoes, there is no hope. Clumpy shoes at the opera? Swallow my pride -- I have no choice.
