May 18, 2004 - A Vision of Shoes

After staying up late and watching Larry King's interview with California first lady Maria Shriver, I dreamt about some kind of fundraiser the Kennedy women were throwing. It had something to do with auctioning off their accessories, like their shoes and handbags.

In another recent dream, I was watching a film someone had shot of me without my knowledge. In it, I came in and sat down at a movie theater, holding a pair of really cool, kick-ass black boots, which I set on the chair next to me.

I don't know what this whole shoe thing is about. Is it a "these boots are made for walking" Nancy Sinatra kind of stance? Does it represent a change in my life, a new direction?

Or is it simply representative of the fact that I love to buy new shoes? As I continue to lose weight, I enjoy clothes shopping more and more, one of my favorite places being, of course, Payless Shoes.

I don't know what my dog Una dreams about when she barks and whines in her sleep, but I have a pretty good idea it's not anything to do with shoes. Or at least, not wearing them.

She has been reasonably restrained about shoes for quite a long time. The last time she went on a shoe binge was last summer when we were visiting my brother and his wife. She decided, while we were out, that she would play with a pair of good shoes owned by my brother's wife. However, in this case she didn't so much chew them up as scuff them and scratch them.

Before that, the last time she really went to town on a pair of shoes, she did it in a very sneaky way. This was in the summer of 2001, just before my brother's wedding. I had bought some new shoes from Payless to go with a new dress I'd bought. They were sitting in a box out in the living room.

Una got up in the middle of the night, snuck into the living room, opened the box, chewed the shoes, and then came back to bed! Naturally, she got severely yelled at for this incident, and to date it seems as if she's gained control over the shoe urge.

Perhaps sometimes when she's whining in her sleep, she's dreaming of shoes she can't quite reach.

Which just goes to show why dream guides can only provide suggestions but can't interpret symbols correctly for each person at all times. After all, shoes to me might mean freedom, whereas to Una, they mean a forbidden treat.

Moral:
Sometimes the shoe is a window to the soul.