The Village Beautiful
Something happened to me one summer, four years ago. I was walking up the sidewalk not far from my house, when I saw a shoe lying by the side of the road. I paused, half-circled, stooped closer. It was, as I would later be able to describe it, a wedge sandal with a cork heel, with black canvas straps, and merona printed on the inner sole, size 8½. So what? Even around here, stray shoes appear all the time. I mean, people just throw trash out the car window, abandon pets, no one knows why.
It was a period in my life when I was briefly happy. Not happy exactly. Content, maybe. I no longer desired. It was as if something within me had been settled and becalmed me: a newborn son, a stoic woman who had taken my name when we married (she would later give it back). We lived in a little college town that called itself “the village beautiful” on its welcome sign.