Author – Zhang Ronghui
A while ago I was feeling stressed at work and wishing to try something new, so I registered for drawing lessons at my neighbourhood’s community centre, on Saturdays.
In the first lesson I realized that my neighbour from my same apartment building was also there, and since then we decided to carpool to the community centre and became friends.
One Saturday it was my turn to drive. We got there and the instructor started arranging on the table the usual items to draw: oranges, a bottle, and a china bowl. The instructor, a man in his sixties, was patient and very technically accomplished, although pretty dull in terms of choosing objects for our still-life drawing, always the very same. Someone timidly asked if we could perhaps draw something else, but the room where we were seemed to lack anything other than more bottles, tables, and an old collapsible ladder. Someone else then suggested:
-What about drawing a back pack, or pair of shoes or boots?
We all looked around. nobody had a backpack, and what we saw lots was of flip-flops, boring dad-sneakers, and even a pair of uggs. I was wearing a pair of beaten New Balance sneakers, but it was immediately evident that the only one there wearing footwear with an interesting shape was my fried, who had on a pair of old, but good-quality leather boots. As all stares fell on his feet, he said:
-Umm… Sure, we can draw my boots.
He took them off and put them on the table, then going back behind his easel to stand in his light gray socks. The boots turned indeed to be interesting to draw, full of intricate detail: the pattern on the soles, the criss-cross of the laces, the creases on the old leather.
At some point someone knocked on the door as the instructor was away in the bathroom, and my friend went to get it. It was the group next door; they needed to borrow a table. The tables were heavy, so my friend helped them to move it, but what he did not realize is that the floor in the other classroom had been recently mopped, and rather sloppily.
When he came back he said to me: “Oh man, the floor in that classroom was seriously wet” as he proceeded to take off his damp socks and put them in his art supplies bag, standing on his bare feet for the rest of the session.
The boots turned out to be a very engaging drawing subject, because when the session was done, many people were not yet finished. After some discussion, my friend said “You know what? You can give them back to me next Saturday.”
We got on my car, I shod and he barefoot, and on the ride back home he got a phone call. My friend is Romanian and he had been waiting for the longest time for the release of a document from his consulate to complete his application for his residence permit here in Canada. The document had just been finally released, and my friend was desperate to complete his application as soon as possible. He said:
-I know it is a bit much to ask, but would you drive me downtown?
I said I would, and then he added;
-Also, ummm, I can’t show up at the consulate like this. I’m sorry to ask this, but can I borrow your shoes and socks?
When we arrived I parked on the street to drop him off at the consulate, and took off my socks and shoes, which he immediately put on. “I really owe you one,” he said as he left.
He told me not to wait for him–the waiting time could be really long—so I drove home. I had never driven barefoot: the pedals felt funny and alien. I parked in my lot, but instead of heading home I took a walk in the park nearby. It was very early fall, the afternoon was sunny and gorgeous, and the damp lawn felt soothing on my bare feet.