Figure 1 – Child’s lost patent leather shoe, Salem, MA, November 2, 2019 (c) DE Wolf 2019

I was walking home on Saturday from my favorite coffee shop and came upon the little child’s patent leather shoe, of Figure 1, lying just as I photographed it on the Essex Street cobble stone. It was an appealing, well-worn, object; so I paused to photograph it. The point is obvious. The shoe has an associated story that we really don’t know, but fill in and imagine the details. Is it an artifact of the Halloween Night revelries? Was the child being pushed along by her parents or was she running just a bit too enthusiastically? How angry we’re her parents at the lost? How deep was the financial loss?What did they do to keep the child’s feet warm? Was the child embarrassed and contrite? So much meaning in a little shoe.

And then there are the associations with lost things. The child was once so proud of her shiny little shoe, and now it is lost separated from its mate and owner, condemned to be lost, like childhood itself! This like the “Lost Boys” of “Peter Pan.”I was initially amused that on Instagram the photograph was liked by a lady who specializes in photographing lost things. But I realized that, in truth, there is a certain element of meaning in these objects and that, in reality, objects and their associations are the most ephemeral of qualities. Only antique shops restore significance, and no antique shop would offer just a single shoe.