The Urge, or my left shoe before my right.

So I know you must be thinking I write about shoes a bit too frequently. And you might be right. But fuck you, listen up anyway.

Every morning I wake up with the urge. You know what the urge is? It is the feeling to do something you cannot describe. When I think about the urge, I picture someone with their hands out to their sides, mouthing the first syllables of words, quickly, and one after another. Sometimes they let a chirp or letter slip from their larynx. Their eyes are wide with the fuzz and blur of morning, the way a friend looks when they didn’t like the prank you played on them. Mostly people just get the urge for coffee, or breakfast, or quiet, or sex. But not me. Surely those things are great in the morning, but I’m talking about shoes, remember?

I get the urge to put my left shoe on.

Then I get the urge to put my right shoe on.

Always in that order.

I couldn’t tell you what this stems from. Perhaps there’s a pathway in my brain I can only use if I put my left shoe on first. Maybe shoe-routines are my own personal beta blockers. I’ve never tried to challenge the urge. Fear is a feeling I am afraid of. Maybe you can trace it back to the fact that my right foot is bigger than my left, which makes my left shoe much easier to put on. Or maybe not…

The other day, on the way back from Philadelphia, a friend planted a seed. He said, “we tend to over-simplify other’s existences.” You, reader, must have started to simplify my mornings to black coffee and shoes by this point, but I promise the shoe routine is a deeply engrained practice. The coffee is well on its way to being engrained, especially after these previous six-tasty-months. But I think no one is in a position to challenge their daily routine. Routines keep our feet grounded and our mind growing toward wherever we’re going, like beautiful sunflowers. Humans strive for familiarity, even in an environment not prone to routine, such as living on the road. We all succumb to the urge. Not doing so is like uprooting sunflowers: no one likes to do that.

Here’s a painting I would paint if I painted: A brown matte finish left dress shoe, sitting next to the number one. The laces would be loosened, but only halfway down the shoe. There would be a similar shoe to the right, next to the number two, and it would be made for a right foot. There would be a line sectioning off the bottom right corner of the canvas. In that corner, I would paint my own face, puffy eyed, and contemplative, looking down, presumably at the two shoes, but perhaps at breakfast.

I love my routines like I love my friends. They drive me totally fucking nuts sometimes, but they keep me from floating away as well. Like a balloon. I am a balloon, floating around this crazy circus-school with a string attached to all my friends' index fingers.

Today, I’m wearing my black canvas shoes, ripped to shreds from the grip tape on my skateboard. This is the reason my toes are cold, and also the reason I haven’t skated in two months.

So it goes.

Riley.