Sarcoma diagnosis. August 2013 marks 20 years of cancer-
free remission. For two decades, I have remained able-
bodied, miraculously considering the tumor's advancement
in my left pelvis when Arkansas Children's Hospital
oncologists discovered it. They talked about amputation,
removing my entire left leg and half my pelvis. They talked
about specially built chairs and body casts, followed by
years of physical therapy. They talked about many things
20 years ago, always with hopeful whispers of the life I have
actually been blessed to live.
Converse All-Stars. My obsession began in high school, and
I have rarely worn another shoe since. I have tried other
brands, but nothing compares. I love their simple design:
solid canvas, white-walled souls, bright stitches and laces
descending towards a thick rubber-capped toe. All-Stars
are not particularly attractive or even comfortable.
New All-Stars require a constant month's wear
before surrendering legend to become your shoe.
Some would wonder why I bother. I wonder,
also, at times.
my bride in new
recently completed nine semesters at Blinn College, teaching
daily in high-top black All-Stars. I exclusively wore All-
Stars for two years in China, walking Shandong Province's
coastlines, Xian's Muslim Quarters, Shanghai's gardens,
Beijing's Forbidden City, and Dali's mountainside villages.
staring down, remembering where we have been, wondering
where we will go. Stuck on the next sentence while writing,
I stare either out the window or at my shoes. Riding A&M's
bus with phone screen addicts, I am either gazing at a book or
at my shoes. Listening to friends over drinks, I am alternating
eye contact between their faces and my shoes. And when the
bottoms blow, announcing a pair's replacement, I put the
new-old pair of All-Stars in the closet, alongside my previous
four, so, even after they have finished the race, I can still look
I have never forgotten that,
at one time, two shoes were
Miraculously, my path deviated
from
the wiles of an un-medically
minded Narrator, offering