Nancy Dorrier

Red Shoes and Haiku

I went to get my booster shot; third vaccine and also the flu shot.

They told me to sit in the red chair and wait.

I was at the CVS on Arrowood Road.

So I read my book, News of the World, about  a man traveling to Texas on horseback reading the paper to the people in each town, for a dime.

People stood in line for this.

While I was reading, I didn’t notice the comings and goings until another customer waiting in another red chair, said, “She’s talking to you.  She likes your shoes.”

I looked up and saw a big smile and she saying you have a light free spirit to wear those red shoes.  I said yes.  I only wear these New Balance but look for colors.  I like these red ones.

“Bless you,” she said,  then went on about how she was done with husbands and she had been in the shelter.  At a devotional they had there in the living room, she saw her guardian angel pass through and the angel told her,

“everything is gonna be okay, you have everything you need, all the rest is want.”

You have everything you need.

All the rest is want.

Then the pharmacist came and gave me two shots and the Blessed Angel went to the counter to take care of what she was there for.  I stood up and thanked her for her message.

She say, “I am so sorry I didn’t even ask if you was a Christian.”

I thought of my daddy and that time in Alais’s house in Eluai, Tanzania when he asked me that question.  His wife had made a beaded cross for me.  And he didn’t want to offend with the gift.

I wanted to tell  that it didn’t matter, her message went over all religions and people.  I am a Buddhist Presbyterian or a Presbyterian Buddhist.

But I said,  “oh yes, I am.  Yes I am a Christian.”  Thank you for your blessing to me.

Can I say it in 3 lines?

Red shoes lit up her soul

Provoking saying hello

Bless you sister for your shoes

Good fall day

Still mosquitoes here

Have on my red shoes

Done with husbands she says

Guardian angel visits

Guides her to know all is well

All the rest is want

Getting my booster shot

She visited me

We both had masks

could see smiling though

Who will be my blessed angel today and where?

At the park? 

On the Zoom? 

Who will be with me? 

Who will I be with? 

Not distracted. 

Just there. 

Just here. 

I am happy I met you, I said, then added, I am happy I saw you.  And you saw me with my red shoes.

I could have met you and still missed you, not seen you.