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Spring
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Spring
Mr. Bootblack is a philosopher with distinct views of his own. He earns a living cleaning shoes. Once every two weeks he writes an article about footwear for GDS – and about the wearers..
If I had to choose the best week in the year it would have to be the one when people first show off their toes. I call them the city’s buds of spring even though some are more like blossoms – after all, we first glimpse them beautifully painted peeking out of peep toes. Well at least I do but that’s because I never look at men’s toes.
None of the women come to have their shoes cleaned by me. Obviously. We are in Manhattan the place where women already buy spring collection shoes in January and impatiently wait for an occasion to finally wear them. And for those of you who take an interest in such things: this spring everyone is talking about coloured strappy Pradas - which are apparently harder to get your hands on than a cheap apartment on the Upper East Side. So the first week of spring may not a good week for me in terms of work. But it is the best week in the year.
I spent a whole afternoon strolling through the Village – actually just because Murray’s Melts on Bleecker Street has the best ice cream in the city: Van Leeuwen ice cream, handmade in Brooklyn, with cream from cows that can practically see the Statue of Liberty while grazing on their meadow. Local is a magic word in Manhattan, this island on the Hudson, magic like Prada. It does have something to do with protecting the environment but probably even more with the desire to do everything a bit more simply. People remember what it was like growing up in the provinces, running through the cow fields barefoot. How they would jump instead of walk. We all remember. I do too every time I see those first toes appear on the first warm days of spring. I look at people’s faces, that New York City look that says they are all in an incredible hurry. And then I think it might be quite nice if we all went around barefoot for one week. It would earth us somehow. On the other hand, this is quite the most awful thought you can have as a bootblack, that’s for sure. Even so …
Shoes are a compromise. You just can’t run around barefoot everyday. They are a compromise, like everything else in life when more than one person is involved. Work. Politics. The amount of ice cream you eat. For me this is OK. I am quite an old guy. At some point I learnt you have to stop thinking you are going to get everything you want – and just start wishing for what you have. Because there is a loophole. There is a way of making every compromise a victory. This is the best way of dealing with the world: it is called elegance. You may not be able to go around barefoot every day but if compromise looks like these peep toes with coloured straps then you have shown fate how a cowboy mounts a horse – with his held up high.
And then there are moments you just switch off and do what you want. For this I recommend a warm spring day in the Village with a scoop of local pistachio ice cream. On that I make no compromises.
