Day 9: Abravanel Hall

I bought these shoes at Plato's Closet. I thought that they were adorable. I've worn them to church probably twice. And I wore them to Abravanel Hall.

It was part of an all day date with Skyler. The original post is here. For the record, I only wore these shoes to Abravanel Hall. I was not running around Salt Lake in them. And I wish that we had gotten a picture, but I definitely left my camera in the car.

We had eaten dinner with Skyler's family in Willard, which is about 45 minutes north of Salt Lake. We lingered a little too long, as Skyler and his family were not the most willing to part from each other. I changed in the bathroom into my grey dress, which, by the way, took me a long time to iron on MegN's ottoman. I decided that because we were running late I would wait to do my hair and makeup in the car. I left the bathroom and Skyler was still running around looking for his shoes and belt. Luckily Michael was there to tell him where they were. Skyler asked him for a piece of gum. Michael looked at me and with a slightly sly look on his face asked me if I was going to be wanting one too. I said yes.

Eventually we finally made it out to the car and Skyler had to drive really fast to make up for lost time. While he drove I tried my best to apply mascara. Not the best idea to do while driving fast on the freeway. But as far as I can remember I didn't jab myself in the eye. And I put on dark lip gloss, which is very unusual for me. I abstained from changing my shoes as I knew that the ones I had been wearing all day smelt disgusting and that the button on the shoes for the symphony were hard to deal with. I decided to try to put them on while I was getting out of the car. We were late, and I probably should have just worn my regular shoes. But no, I had planned to wear these shoes, and I was going to do it. I told Skyler to look away as I put them on, knowing that as I was bending down my skirt would definitely lift higher than it should. In fact, I'm pretty sure I said something like, "don't look over here or you'll see my vagina." Yeah, he wasn't impressed. On our way home he would fart in the car, to which I would reply, "I am a woman! You wouldn't fart in front of Tamara!" and he would respond with "well, Tamara never would have said the word 'vagina' in front of me."

And that's when it happened. While I was trying to contort my foot around to stretch the leather strap across my wide foot, the button snapped off. Then I started to panic. And the only thing I could think of was to stuff the strap into the shoe underneath my foot. So that's how I wore them, as we ran from the Marriott's parking garage and into Abravanel Hall. Abravanel Hall, by the way, is lovely. It had this amazing red and orange glass sculpture in the lobby that looked like a pillar of fire. And the actual space where you sit is amazing as well.

But when I think of these shoes I don't think of Abravanel Hall so much. What I think about is how I felt that night. Running to the building, sitting during the performance, and then driving back to Provo, I felt more beautiful than I have ever felt in my entire life. And I recall feeling during the day that as much as I loved Skyler, I didn't have feelings for him like that, and I didn't. But I felt beautiful. And I think that it has a lot less to do with my broken shoe or my Target dress that I wear all the time, but more with the situation. Being with Skyler, who I cared so much about, and going on this very adult date. Dressing up for the Utah Symphony. Wearing dark lip gloss. Having my hair pulled back. Feeling like any second Skyler was going to look over at me sitting in his passenger seat and think to himself, "My, she is beautiful. And I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful girl to go to the symphony with."

The night ended with us eating hash browns in my kitchen with Camille and Marie. When Marie left to take Camille home, Skyler and I got ready to say goodnight. It was midnight, which meant that Skyler had to leave. We stood across my threshold, and I said goodnight and kissed him on the cheek. He returned the kiss. This, by the way, led to a rumor going around that Skyler and I had kissed that night. We did, but they were very chaste cheek kisses. And I remember still feeling beautiful, standing there in my bare feet. And even today I still believe that I have never been as beautiful as I was that night. And that's what these shoes are. Which is why almost two months later those shoes are still in my closet, and the button is still in my purse. Because if I get rid of them, I might just get rid of that feeling, and I'm not ready to do that yet.