The Joy of a Simple Shine

I suppose I have never paid too much attention to the elevated chairs in airports and shopping malls and hotel lobbies and busy sidewalks attended by some lank and laconic man willing -- if not always eager -- to shine my shoes.  Perhaps I have always been in a hurry, or at least convinced myself that I was far too pressed to afford the time; perhaps it simply seemed like an extravagance I should forego. 

Or perhaps it was that I didn't want to deprive myself of the pleasure. 

There is, after all, something inherently satisfying about the process of smearing dense color onto the scars of life's careless or hazardous encounters as borne by my shoes, and buffing all evidence into newness.  The pasty polish, the gentle rubbing, the vigorous brushing, the finishing buff, the instant validation of a job well done.

I don't know why I don't seize the opportunity more routinely.  In fact, it rarely happens.  Perhaps it is the inevitably stained fingers or the risk of ruining the carpet; perhaps I rarely look down and recognize the need.  But this time something somehow called my name.  It could have been that, choked by an avalanche of open-ended projects and tasks, it was the need for something I could actually complete; perhaps in this world of infinite brokenness it was a hunger for something I could handily make right; perhaps I simply needed something mindless with which I could occupy my hands.  Whatever the impetus,  last night I dug out the appropriate tools of the trade -- the bag with the brush and the dabbers and the buffing cloth stained black on one side and brown on the other -- laid out the obligatory newspapers, and set up a couple pairs of shoes -- one black, one brown.  The brown ones had carried me to Italy and back and had more than earned some tender coloring care.  The toes looked as though I had used them to chip concrete and were hardly fit for business attire.  The black ones were less scuffed than simply stained and disfigured from winter's slushy abuse.  Both, then, and for different reasons were desperate for a laying on of hands.  And I could use some manual therapy.

And so it went for the next half hour -- dabbing, rubbing and inspecting in gentle, circular motion; brushing, buffing, and beaming.  When finished, I proudly left them there -- ostensibly to "dry", though it likely had more to do with pride -- a child at "show and tell."  They sat there atop the ottoman like ornaments; trophies of good accomplished work.  And today I rather hate to put them on.  There are scrapes, after all, out there just waiting to strike; scuffs lurking at the door.

But all in all, it occurs to me, that is rather fine.  It will just give me an excuse to go through it all again.  Who knows, maybe there is a retirement job in all of this -- a little pocket change, a platform from which to observe the passersby...

...and the simple pleasure of making something shine.