Shelter from the storm

I have these black Kork Ease sandals that I bought in, I think, 2013.  They're very comfortable.  Last summer, during a family trip to Korea, I wore them almost every day, for seven to ten miles of daily walking, often uphill (I climbed Seongsan Ilchubong in these shoes.)  Because I'd worn the sandals for most of the summer, too, my feet were accustomed to them, and I didn't have so much as a callus at the end of the trip.

This summer, I worked only from home for the first time, so even the Kork Ease were dressier than I needed for my daily routine of copy editing from my kitchen table and hanging around at the pool watching swim practice.  I wore them to church, and out here or there, but most of the time, I was in flip-flops.

We spent this weekend in Baltimore.  After seeing one of the craziest baseball games ever on Friday night (I looked it up; the Orioles' two grand slams in a single inning was not a first-ever feat, but it's only happened six times in modern baseball history), we spent Saturday walking and riding the Water Taxi around the waterfront, seeing sights and eating food.  My Fitbit recorded over 19,000 steps.

It was 6:15 or so when we returned to the hotel.  My feet were blistered raw in four places, and black from leather dye.  We were all damp and chilled and ragged from the rain.  After a swim in the hotel pool, though (I scrubbed my icky feet first), followed by a few minutes in the sauna, followed by a shower, we were all clean and dry and warm again.  Then we ate more food.

*****

Because I follow what the young people are doing on the social media, I have learned that college-age kids now advise people to "check their privilege."  If some juvenile social justice warrior told me to check my privilege, I think I'd suggest that she check her manners.  I do not think that word means what they think it means. 

Manners aside, though, I'm actually checking my privilege now. My relative privilege versus that of most of the world can be quantified by the word "shitload."  I enjoy a shitload of privileges.  When my children are hungry, I always have something to offer them, even if it's not exactly what the children want. ("There's nothing to eat in this house."  I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.)  Filth is a temporary and easily remedied condition.  Shelter from the storm is always within short walking distance. 

I think that I might have said something that afternoon about refusing to take another step until I had clean feet and dry clothes.  I'm sure that refugee women, on a hot and dusty road from Damascus or Asmara, also sometimes threaten to refuse to walk one more step in their dirty shoes or ragged clothes.  They keep going, though, and so would I if I had to.  I don't have to, though.  Most days, I don't have to. Privilege.