Red Shoes

This is just a small part of the story. The beginning part. It is one I never told and least of all to the person it is about though I have promised to do so some day.

Awhile back, I had been discouraged about my ability to pick anyone who might be good for me. I seemed to get sucked into the most unlikely of relationships and wind up confused and feeling like a fool, or shocked and feeling that I must just somehow be an idiot in the grand scheme of the universe's workings. So, I asked God for specifics. I said, "Put a red bow on him. I seem to choose so poorly. I don't trust myself anymore to find what I am supposed to be having because I get distracted too easily, or too excited, or to understanding, or I am just not where I need to be. Put a red bow on him, God, because I can't make heads or tails of this anymore."

Mr. Music arrived on the train. I have written of him before. " The Wishing Well" is about him and an ending of sorts. I guess it is confusing to not have started at the beginning. I think somehow we don't know how significant something will be until we have gotten somewhat through the story.

I digress.

We had talked for a time but hadn't met. Life didn't work out for it to happen at that time. Yet, here it was at last. The grand meeting. There was excitement and nervousness and I decided to just go with it. It was in the midst of a heat wave. I was dressed to the nines. I looked great until I stepped out in the heat and my hair frizzed and makeup melted down my face while I drove in my poorly air-conditioned car and waited at the station. "Red bow, God. A red bow." I am not sure what I was expecting, but certainly not him.

I sat there waiting until the crowds of passengers had flowed through the parking lot. And then he stepped outside and I was pretty sure it wasn't actually him. He was nothing I had seen in photographs and not at all what I had imagined. Though I knew he was a few years younger, I didn't expect someone that looked about thirty or younger. He had wild crazy hair, skinny, short, covered in tattoos, weird glasses. He wore jeans and a black t-shirt-and bright red shoes.

"You have to have this wrong..." I told God. "I said a red bow not red shoes." And then it occurred to me, maybe the red shoes were actually God's version of a red bow.

Mr. Music leaned into the car window. "I'm not what you expected am I?" and then got into my car. "I'm not your type. You probably go for big beefy guys." (which before then was probably close to the truth.)

I took a deep breath and said, "I don't have a type. Not really." and I argued with God a bit for making that the case. Red shoes. Darn. He couldn't stop talking or touching me and rested a hand on my arm. That is when I saw the tattoo. The pure red tattoo on his hand that is very distinctive that I will not describe here, but I have never seen another like it. I only thought," Darn it God! Stop it already!"

By the time we arrived at the restaurant, I was intrigued. I felt we made the oddest couple-Mutt and Jeff-and I worried everyone would look at me and think I was a cougar or a giant. During dinner, I forgot all about what anyone else would be or could be thinking and I never thought that thought again. He is singly the most interesting and strange person I have ever met. By the end of dinner, I was fascinated.

We went for a walk at the War Memorial and it started to drizzle. My hair got frizzier and so did his. We walked along holding hands, not noticing the rain was getting harder until we were racing through a downpour. He kissed me in the car and I drove him back to the train.

Mr. Music and I have very different lives that don't seem to run in sync with each other. It doesn't mean they never will. It simply means I don't know. Yet, I still believe it was a designed move on divinity's part to bring him to me. I learned an important lesson-that anything can happen. I learned that the one who is to be the one may not arrive in the package I imagined and that I most likely am not the package someone else specifically chose either. I learned that I should be moving wherever I am being led and be able to allow it all to unfold with a bit of faith that all is as it should be. I learned that I would have almost lost an experience if God hadn't decided to put a big red bow on it and open up my world.

Monika M. Basile