When I went to the arts festival I was at a booth, and was looking at some really great art, when this couple walked up beside me, and they weren't wearing any shoes. They were just walking around downtown without any shoes on. I was intrigued and wanted to study them and watch them, but didn't want to appear rude, so I snuck a few more glances and stopped looking. But I wondered what the point of wearing no shoes was...

On the way home, I was thinking about this still. When I was younger, enjoying the wonderful summers of my childhood, I loved being barefoot. I loved the feel of cold dirt or mud, of grass with dew drops, of warm grass, of cool night grass, I loved walking barefoot in our creek. I didn't mind that I was getting dirty or was freezing in the cold creek water. I actual has this "training" going on where I tried to make my feet really tough, it was like an endurance thing for myself. It was always my goal to be able to walk on anything without my feet hurting, you know, stones, hot pavement, hot coals...
So I would try walking on the stones in our driveway every day hoping to build up my stamina power of enduring pain. I never quite made it.

Then we went to the Outer Banks last week. People weren't wearing shoes very often around there either. I was so suprised (I spell it like that on purpose now) to see people buying their groceries or eating lunch with no shoes on. There was a coffee house we went to and almost everyone sitting on the front porch lacked shoes.

And I guess I'm just wondering why.
Why not wear shoes?
Why wear shoes?
Why do I like not wearing shoes?
But why did I hurt my foot yesterday because I ran through our woods with no shoes on?
Why?