I have on my feet the second pair of Velcro tennis shoes I have ever had. The first pair met an abrupt and tragic end. I was young, strapped into the baby seat in the back of my family's Oldsmobile. I don't remember if it had fake wood paneling down the sides, but I hope so. My folks tell it like this: I had really wanted Velcro shoes because I could put them on and take them off all by myself. This was a really exciting proposition to a young boy who's chubby and uncoordinated fingers had yet to master the subtle art of shoelaces. So my parents gave in and bought me some snazzy new Velcro sneaks. A couple days later the three of us were driving along one of Eastern Washington's many high and dry bluffs, along a road that skirted around the top of a low valley. My father always drove, and at the time did not believe in using toxic conveniences such as AC, so all the windows were down. My mother looked behind her into the back seat just in time to see me, grinning from my car seat, throw one of my new “I took off my shoe all by myself!” sneakers out the window and down into the canyon below.

Needless to say, my parents never bought be another pair of Velcro sneakers again. This has not exactly left a whole in my heart. Or even left behind some kind of dull consumer ache. But I always coveted them. When I was old enough to request another pair I never did. I just wasn't courageous enough. Being that weird gangley kid hovering friendless in the back of the class was awkward enough without wearing the thick soled plastic shoes typically designed for severely handicapped. I wanted them because I thought they looked snappy and made fun noises. To me they are a throwback to very specific old fashioned genre of science fiction: When all the space ships were large and bulbous, the sci-fi damsels wore high boots and short skirts, and the sci-fi hunks wore tight one piece track suits that hugged thick shoulders and rumps. Needless to say, this shameless desire was put on the back shelf for some time. Years passed and I was only reminded of this odd affection by the odd Velcro shoe that happenstance passed my pay. This all changed a month ago.

There is a large squat in an abandoned arboretum around the corner from where I live. Inside there is a wagenplatz (a community of people living in wagons) there full of Poles and on Tuesdays we play soccer in a big dirt field up the road. I only brought my big steel-toed work boots to Barcelona, so I would always try to find or barrow shoes to play in. I have come to realize, to my annoyance, that Spaniards do not share my shoe size. One Tuesday after one of the games three toes from each foot were sticking out of the front of the shoes. Another Tuesday had me clomping around the field in my shitkickers. It was the third time I played that send me to a store. I had pushed my feet into shoes that were just too small. It hurt a bit to run, but I figured it was better then my boots. Until some big Pole and I decided to both kick the soccer ball in opposite directions at the same time. I thought I broke my big toe, but all that happened was a lot of bruising and bleeding underneath the nail. So I broke down and decided to look into buying some new shoes. Which was something, really. I have made a policy for myself to not spend any money here (with some very necessary exceptions of course : pens, beer, tobacco, bike lock, things hard to recycle). The cheapest shoes I could find were 6 euros, in the basement of some big sporting goods store. And wouldn't you know it, they were my new shinny white Velcro sneaks. Well, they were new and shinny and white. They were mine, and it itched a scratch that was decades in the making. And my toenail fell off a few days ago while I was swimming. Its a rather particular feeling, like a fresh circumcision.

Now, in the present, there is a special tenderness and sensitivity to every step I take. I walk forward into my destiny, but the shoes and that unguarded fleshy toe I walk with are always bringing me back to the past. Which is special. Thats why I included pictures of these things for you to see.