I didn’t really have plans for today, the tour I had booked was cancelled due to lack of participation and Seregon left this ship this morning so I was somewhat at loose ends both for activity and for company, but I didn’t really feel like staying on board all day either so I braved the 45 minute bus ride into town and alighted in the middle of the city center.
The first thing I realized was that there was a fringe festival going on. There had been a brochure on the travel guide’s desk all week, but in the flurry of other things going on – and just with day to day life in general – it slipped my mind. There weren’t any shows running that I was particularly interested in seeing, but festivals always attract buskers of all stripes so the air was alive with violin music and vocalists and even an accordion. And then I heard something: the distinct rhythmic scrape of worn metal on pavement.
Someone was tap dancing.
In the spirit of honesty she wasn’t really very good. It was basic stuff, stuff that only a few years ago I could have done with my eyes closed, but at least she was doing it, which is saying something. That said, it wasn’t her dancing particularly that drew my eye, it was her shoes. Ask any tap dancer how to utterly murder a good pair of shoes and they’ll give you almost the same answer every time: work a parade, or dance on a street corner. Pavement destroys your shoes. This girl’s were no different. Scraped and battered on the edges, the leather peeling back from the soles where they’d swept too hard against the pavement, holes danced through the toes from doing toe-stands on cement, and – though I couldn’t see them – the taps themselves worn blade thin at the tips.
If I were a better person, and I’d had $200 (or more) to spare, I would have given it to this woman to buy a new pair of shoes. But she did eventually let slip that she had spares, so I feel better. That said, the whole incident prompted me to do something I should have done in the last major port. I suspect the tourist information booth was caught by surprise, I mean most people are looking for museums, or art galleries – or more often than that, free internet. So when I came up to the counter?
I have an odd request. I need to find a dance shoppe.
Pardon me?
A dance shop. I need to buy dance shoes.
While the request may have caught them slightly by surprise, they did find me one. So I trotted up the street two blocks and turned a little side street and walked into the all-too-familiar too-tight space with too much merchandise.
All the world round, dance shoppes are the same. The people behind the counter speak the same ‘language’ (no matter what their actual language may be), and wherever we are in the world, we take care of our own. When I was lost in Bristol once (looooong and slightly funny story for another time), it was a dance shoppe owner that dried my tears and fed me cookies and tea before making sure I got back to the hostel I was staying. The shoes are almost always kept in the back corner, stock boxes on the bottom, display shelves at the top, every inch of wall space used. The girl behind the counter flashed me a smile as I walked in.
Can I help you?
I know exactly what I’m looking for, but I’m not actually tall enough to see the top shelf…
Ah, yeah, know the feeling. What do you need?
Bloche split-sole jazz slippers. Black. Lace. 5.5 street.
You see, I forgot to pack my dance shoes with me this contract. There was a time when I never ever would consider travelling without them, so I’m not quite sure what caused my random memory slip. It worries me somewhat actually, it’s not like me to leave behind something that’s so …part of me. But I had almost danced through my last pair (swing dancing will kill jazz slippers eventually). So I slid $70 Australian (and tried not to think of how much it translated to in my own currency), and reminded myself not to make such a silly mistake again.
I could have waited till Hong Kong, where it would have been easy enough to find a cheaper generic make that probably would have done the job just as well. But I’ve been a dancer of some kind of nearly 30 years…and I’m picky about my shoes.
So there 