Barefoot and...

...just plain barefoot.

Dy reminded me.

The first experience that really endeared us to this part of the world was when we stayed at a lodge in Mission Beach six years ago and watched in absolute amazement as the owners' daughter went off to school without shoes. It's too wet they explained. Leather rots. Sneakers stay soaked. We were later shocked to see people waltzing in and out of the grocery store, the grocery store, something that violates the law in Florida (and probably for a very good reason), sans footwear.

We arrived here this time around with Crocs for all and a pair of Birkies for me for those dressier (or "flash" as they say) occasions. I supplemented my shoe collection with a few pairs of high-heeled sandals on our Christmas trip back and have watched them rapidly moulder away along with our luggage, belts, purse, and some tack we salvaged from our last residence. Teething puppies love Crocs so now we're almost entirely shoeless.

Grice sets off for school each day in her uniform, hat mandatory, shoes not. We now play tennis, ride horses, go grocery shopping, visit the library, the post office, the doctor, the bank, get haircuts, dine out, heck, I even went to a meeting the other day, barefoot. As a precaution we can always dig out a pair of someone's flip-flops (or "thongs" as they oh, so wrongly refer to them) or partially digested rubbery clogs shoved under a seat or tossed in the way-back of the car in case of unavoidable emergency public restroom stops. You've got to draw the line somewhere.

Isn't it getting to be winter over here? Why, yes it is. And while I still don't have any proper shoes, I do have plenty of socks. What more does one need?


As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.

-- Margaret Mead