I’d completed the to-do-list. Writer chores, check. Housework, check. Yard work, check. I’d even reached beyond my loner self to schedule a lunch date.

Now it was Me Time. Have some fun. But how? Yoga? No, that’s therapy, not play. I paced from kitchen to living room. How about that hula-hoop in the back of my closet? Nope, that’s exercise. I tapped my fingers against my thighs. Read? Yes. What a luxury to escape into a novel. I found the iPad and curled up on my bed. From the looks of my collection, you’d think I was earning an advanced degree in marketing, creative writing, and spirituality. Not a single pleasure-read. I rubbed my neck. Music!  My downloads library was medicinal: Hindu chants, singing bowls, Native American flute. Nothing to boogie with. My mouth tightened into a grimace.
 
According to her memoir, a pallor hung over Linda Shapiro’s childhood––her mother’s episodes of depression. Treatments in the doctor’s office turned her into a zombie, and then she inched back to motherhood. At the end of second grade, Linda’s teacher took her aside. “Have some fun this summer. You don’t have to be so serious.” Linda was puzzled. She knew how to have fun. Didn’t she?

Sometimes my mother sagged into blankness. Shuffled from day to day in the same housedress. While Dad watched, men in white pulled her from our house and escorted her into the night. She reappeared a week later. Nobody talked about it. Once, when the grown-ups were playing cards, I was in the corner reading and eavesdropping. My aunt pointed at me, “Why’s that child so serious?”

Me Time. I set the iPad on the nightstand. My temples throbbed. Time to get reacquainted with Mama.


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Victor called my name at the open mic. My stomach went queasy. I walked to the stage anyway. My hands trembled. I read a story anyway. And then the audience shouted the Fearless Fridays Open Mic affirmation, which they did for all the performers. “Dawn Downey, you are fearless!”

They were mistaken.

I’m afraid of: ridicule, poison ivy, spiders, ticks, deer, police cars, water, tall men, cows, getting lost, yellow traffic lights, old houses, and new software.

I live with terror. I breathe anxiety. It’s the way I’m made.

When Victor calls my name at next month’s open mic, my hands might tremble again, because I’m not fearless.

Although … I’m not afraid of bees.

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You take the gold lame´ clogs down from the closet shelf again. You forgot to put them in the give-away box last month, and the month before, and the month before. Made in Italy is stamped on the insole. Ferraris for your feet. Hand-stitched metallic leather wraps around the shoe, even on the bottom where nobody else can see it. But you know you’re walking on gold. They’re as flawless as they day you bought them a decade ago.

You and your best friend were vacationing together. A weekend of shopping the sales in luxury department stores. She’d shown you what to buy and told you you were gorgeous every time you tried something on.

You turn the clogs over in your hand. Buttery soft leather. You felt a little foolish the last time you wore them. They’re a bit too dressy and a little too high. They turn your modest walk into a swagger.

Can you still call her your best friend, though you haven’t spoken for … my goodness … how long has it been?

You place the shoes in the give-away box on top of outgrown dresses. Your hand lingers.

That last phone call was awkward, you and she unable to fill long pauses.

There's no denying the shoes are gorgeous, but they no longer fit your wardrobe … or your life.

You wonder how she’s doing.

The closet shelf looks empty. Maybe you’ll wear them one last time.