While ageless Jo and nine year old Chloe were attending the Nutcracker Ballet in San Francisco this last holiday season, I took a walk around the neighborhood and came across these shoes in the street. I immediately realized that they told a story of many possibilities. How did they come be left here? What were the circumstances? I found them in this exact position. Were they thrown randomly here? Did someone neatly place them in this position?
I also reflected on the range of lifestyles within a block of each other. Pretty little girls at the ballet with their best holiday dress dreaming of wearing ballet slippers while they watched the Nutcracker ballet alongside these shoes, which obviously referenced shattered dreams on the streets of San Francisco. Whatever the circumstance of these shoes landing here, it didn’t seem like a positive occurrence.