Five Pairs of Shoes

'The time has come,' the walrus said,' to talk of many things: of shoes and ships - and  sealing wax - of cabbages and kings.'  - Lewis Carroll

When Jacob was home last summer, he was in the habit of leaving five pairs of shoes at the front door.  Day after day, I would move the shoes from the front foyer to his bedroom.  Within hours, it seemed, those five pairs of shoes would find their way back to the front door.  In the last couple of weeks he was home, I decided to leave the shoes where they were, suspecting somehow that I would miss seeing them there when I came home after he had returned to school.  And I was right.  In those first weeks he was back in Guelph, I did experience pangs everytime I walked in to the very tidy foyer.


Yesterday I brought Jacob home for the summer.  The house came alive the moment he walked in the door.  We unloaded my packed car and I left Jacob to put his things away while I went to visit my mother.  When I returned home, I was greeted by five pairs of shoes at the front door.  There is a lot of time between now and next September when he returns to school.  And so the shoe wars will begin anew.  I will move the shoes to his room and be unsurprised when they find their way back to the front door.  And in the middle of August, I will no doubt resign myself to leaving them there knowing I will miss seeing them when he is back at school in September.