As with many things in my life, I view clothing and footwear as practical matters of necessity more than as vehicles for much personal expression. I wear the occasional funny t-shirt, and I’ll dress up for a dance now and then, but those are the exception. As items wear out, they are tossed with little thought; a dwindling wardrobe is replenished as necessary.

But this pair of shoes is different. They will be retained as backup for some time, I expect, but here and now at the end of their useful life, they deserve a modest eulogy. In their two years of service, they’ve seen a lot of floors in a lot of cities—it’s time for a few shout-outs.

Traveling has become a way of life for me now. I enjoy seeing different places and people; the variety and adventure is thrilling. But this is not something of my upbringing—indeed, perhaps it was the stability of having lived in the same house my entire childhood and youth that mentally prepared me for moving about later on. That *later*, though, has a very specific starting point, and the shoes have been with me since exactly that date.

### The Beginning

It was early in the morning of the 29th of December, 2006, when I took my first-ever commercial airline flight, from Toronto Pearson Airport to LaGuardia, in New York. On arrival, I had little idea what to expect, but spent the day wandering through midtown. One of many stops was the Capezio at the north end of Times Square, where I found and bought the shoes. My small stash of US dollars was a few hundred in rolled-up bills at the bottom of my satchel, all of which was going to need to last for several weeks until I could get an SSN and be paid, so I bought the shoes on my Canadian credit card—the US dollar would crash about 20% that term, so in the end, it turned out even more expensive to be taking on Canadian-dollar debt. Alas, hindsight.

That evening, I broke in the shoes dancing at Swing 46, on restaurant row. I was underage, but they let me in to have a soda and dance. What a change to have slippy suede on my feet instead of rubber, and beneath a lightweight shoe that fit so well! (There’s [even a video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlLB03gGlyU), if you like—all I can say about that is, well, what a difference two years makes in dancing time.)

In those four months, the shoes took me dancing on floors in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, including the gorgeous Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park. They went to their first lindy exchange, [DCLX 2007](http://www.dclx.org/), and also started to learn a little Bal, at the [NYC Balboa Weekend](http://nycbalboa.com/).

### The Middle

In May of 2007, I returned to Waterloo for school, dancing when I could about town and in Toronto.

Come the middle of August, I embarked on a brief west-coast tour, beginning with a visit to a friend on Vancouver Island for a few days. We drove to Victoria, BC, where the shoes went dancing at a small pub called the Black Swan. From there, I took a ferry to Seattle and a few hours later flew to Los Angeles, where the shoes danced again, at Paladinos.

The shoes then spent four months dancing with me in Australia, regularly at the Roxbury Hotel with [Swingtime](http://swingtimeaustralia.com/blog/wordpress/sydney_swing_dancing_news/), and then at the [Sydney Lindy Exchange](http://www.sydneylindyexchange.com.au/), and the [Sydney Swing Festival](http://www.sydneyswingfestival.com.au/).

At Christmas, the shoes returned to Canada with me. They brought in 2008 at Simon’s Dovercourt dance in Toronto, and then spent eight months with me in Waterloo. I traveled then too, though, several times to Toronto, and elsewhere also. Early in the new year, I stalked [Mickey and Kelly](http://mickeyandkelly.com/) up to Quebec City, for the [Quebec Swing Rendez-Vous](http://qsrv.net/).

A few weeks later was TUX, the Toronto University Exchange, and celebration of UT-Swing’s first birthday. In a state of sleep-deprivation and enhanced silliness, the shoes and their master gave late-night blues a first shot.

In April, the shoes learned a little cross-step waltz, at a Richard Powers workshop in Toronto. That same month, Ryan and I hosted our first party and sleepover at the Shakespeare House, in Waterloo. Drawing modest but enthusiastic contingents from Hamilton, Toronto, and Waterloo, it was both fun and a success.

In May, the shoes returned to la belle province for the [Canadian Swing Championships](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Swing_Championships), at a hotel west of Montreal. I finally had my first-ever—and much overdue—private lesson with Mickey and Kelly, and a favourite Toronto follower who shares the love of Bal.

The third week in June was my midterms. In my discipline of engineering, that’s five exams in as many days. The weekend after was [MezzJelly Waterloo](http://www.mezzjelly.org/waterloo/), our local blues exchange; the weekend before was the [All Balboa Weekend](http://allbalboa.com/), in Cleveland. As a responsible student, I could not possibly justify taking a pre-midterms weekend to go dancing, so sadly, ABW was passed over, but MezzJelly was supremely wonderful.

In August, Ryan and I threw a second house party in Waterloo, this time at La Palaise Marshale. This time, local support and contingents from Toronto, Ottawa, and even an enthusiastic carload from Montreal! (A debt still owed that comes due at the [Montreal Bagel & Blues](http://montrealbagelandblues.com/), in February of this year.)

### The Interlude

Labour Day weekend is a very special time for the few hundred people who attend and participate in an annual dancing camp called [Swing Out New Hampshire](http://www.swingoutnh.com/). The way my schedule worked out between school and work, I was able to fly to Boston for camp week, and then fly out to Seattle afterward for my workterm.

Swing Out New Hampshire is one of the most positive dance atmospheres I’ve ever experienced—followed closely by the Swingtime scene in Sydney. SONH is utterly non-competitive, with complete emphasis placed on having fun and improving each others’ dancing through practice and instruction. It is obvious that it is something very special, particularly when you see how people travel from all corners of the US—as well as internationally—to attend. And not just for the first time, either; many in the crowd were back for their third or fourth summer, even if it meant a flight from the west coast.

### The End

In Seattle, the shoes found a regular home on the floor at Waid’s, where the weekly dance [Burn Blue](http://burnblue.org/) occurs. They traveled to Denver to hear the Cangelosi Cards play at [Lindy Diversion](http://lindydiversion.com/), and danced even more blues at the [Emerald City Blues Festival](http://emeraldcityblues.com/).

Their final hurrah was the [Killer Diller Ball](http://killerdillerweekend.com/). The day after, Monday, my new Aris Allens would arrive, to be broken in the following weekend.

And the Capezio shoes, where are they now? Well… they’re actually in a piece of baggage, lost in the bowels of an Alaskan Airlines facility somewhere—another casualty of my disastrous Christmas travel debacle. Will I ever see them again?

Perhaps not, which would be a shame for sure. But whether gone forever or just for a while, they are remembered fondly as one of only a few constant companions in these two years of travel and adventure.

So it’s just a pair of shoes. Is it? Dancing has become a part of who I am. If I never danced another day in my life, the dances and their associated experiences would still have had a profound impact on who I am as person. And what captures that more than the few scraps of leather that are there between the dancer and their floor… slick to slide, sticky to grip, heavy for stomps, and light for steps… they are dancers’ shoes.

Mike

← Earlier Later → Posted at 12:11 am to Dancing, Reflection.