Asakiyume mita

wakanomori ran in the Cape Cod Marathon over the weekend--in the teeth of an approaching nor'easter! While he was slogging it out, I wandered the coast, nibbling rose hips and admiring plants like this one, with soft, enticing seed heads. I found out it's called "groundsel bush," also sea-myrtle or saltbush (Baccharis halimifolia)



These patent leather shoes grabbed my attention, tucked just so on the other side of the wall separating the beach from the sidewalk. No one was walking barefoot on the beach except gulls and cormorants.



They look like shiny eggs in a nest.

Or like an offering. In The Snow Queen, Gerda gives her new red shoes to the river, believing that the river has taken her playmate Kay, and that by offering the river her shoes, she can induce it to give him back. But the river hasn't taken Kay.

These black shoes aren't near enough to the ocean to really count as an offering to the waves or tide, I don't think.

So if they're an offering, to or for whom?

Or maybe someone just doesn't like their patent leather shoes and has left them for someone else to claim.