Pulp Friction

Those of you who have traveled in Europe know how terribly brave and physiologically miraculous it is that the Italian divas and Parisiennes manage to get around in those staggeringly high heels. I'm talking cobblestone here: Achilles' Heel of heel-wearers everywhere.

For most of the year I can take or leave the cobblestones that line every walking surface as far as the feet can travel. I have found my rollerblade-friendly bike paths, and to the rest I say in my most apathetic voice, enh. However, now that winter has finally muffled the stubborn voice of autumn, the cobblestone is starting to show its character. And it definitely has personality: multiple personalities, to be exact. On the one hand, cobblestone exhibits a marvelous tread, excellent for your winter-travel needs. On the other hand, it falls prey to weather conditions like tonight's - two inches of snow have melted into pools of slush, and now the thermometer is batting its eyelashes and flirting with zero (that's Celsius, people) and the cobblestone is putting on its invisible slippery sheen. The better to land you on your ass, my dearie.

Bum bruises notwithstanding, I almost pity you Americans your conveyor-belt sidewalks and cloned concrete strewn with rock salt. My feet tread upon stones shaped with vision and infinite imagination and thrown together, sometimes haphazardly, sometimes with mathematical precision, always exciting under the feet. And they make an interesting pattern on your butt when it gets up close and personal. In the case of cobblestone, Germans have hit a linguistic bull's-eye: a cobblestone road is "kopfsteingepflastert" (that's kopf-stein-ge-pflast-ert). Let that roll around on your tongue for a bit. There it is, folks - mathematically impractical, slippery-when-wet cobblestone.

Which brings me to my latest Great Life Metaphor. Life is like walking on cobblestone in winter: an endless succession of losing and regaining your footing, tiny slip-ups and finding traction. Sometimes you fall along the way, and then you stand back up and admire your designer behind.