Did you lose a shoe?

About a month ago I did a forest trip in the popular Nacka Reservation with a thought bearing in mind to find the Söderbysjön Lake and Hellasgården place with the runic stones. I followed the marked track but at one point I took a different turn and made a shortcut through the forest. It felt quite an adventure making my own path. Admiring the fantastic forest scenery with lakes and small hills, looking for animal tracks, wooden bridges over the water, wood ant mounds, wondering if I will meet a lost moose or a hungry bear I suddenly saw a shoe lying on the ground in the middle of almost nowhere.

I don’t travel as much as I would like to but even on my usual routes in the cities I have lived or live at the moment, it happened many times to see a lost thing lying somewhere in my way. During the past years I can say that from all the things I’ve lost the most common for me were gloves and umbrellas. Those are so easy to loose or simply to forget them on a bench in the park, on your sit in the train or in a waiting room.

I once on my way to the dance hall for my rehearsal at that time, I decided to walk instead of taking the buss. I do that so often but in that morning I was wearing a pair of high heels ankle boots pretty comfy otherwise, until the heel went broken stuck in a small hole in the asphalt. I remember I laughed inside my self of this embarrassing moment but I was also frustrated for such a ‘’good’’ start of the day. I removed the broken heel and I turned around for a very funny walk back home to change my shoes. I even made sure that I take the buss this time from the closest station to my home.

Maybe on my ways throughout the city I saw many lost things like toys, books, clothing items, tools, keys, papers, eyeglasses, newspapers and so on but nothing for me is so intriguing like a lost shoe. Think about it, would you walk away with only one shoe without noticing that you actually lost the other?

It’s like you are part of a mystery discovering the missing shoe. Who is the owner, what really happened to make one walk away with one shoe, is he alive, why one lost shoe lies in the same spot for days without people noticing it or simply just pretending that nothing happened?

Why is so intriguing to find a lost shoe? Loneliness, abandoned, getting lost, mystery, puzzle….just few words that a lost shoe can remind me of.