Tinkers

My shoe fell apart yesterday. It was one of the shoes I had bought in Goa, after the tide carried mine away one night, near a shop where the vendor told Mikael and me that the music he was selling was sure to make us say "Ooh la la!". When it fell off my foot it was two in the afternoon and the heat radiated from the ground, the kind of heat that almost feels enough to move beyond sensation, and becomes somehow visible, too hot to go barefoot. I looked around and spotted a man a few steps away sitting in a rectangular metal box-like structure laden with shoes. Amazingly, there always seems to be someone here who can do exactly what you need, jobs broken down into pieces, leaving an array of experts on very specific things that have mostly ceased to be manually done at home. I stopped to sit on his stool and he took my shoe between his crossed legs and inspected it carefully. Sitting in the lotus position, the entirety of his thighs touched the ground and the soles of his feet were visible, resting on his knees. A picture of Shirdi Sai Baba on the blue metal wall opposite. I inspected his workshop. Impeccably tidy, with plastic bags stuffed in the shelves lining the wall, full of bits of things for fixing. Things we might so often throw away. I think I have praised the sweeping away of clutter as minimalism in the past or maybe I called it being unattached to things. But being so sure about the merits of not hoarding, I overlooked something else. How different it is to save things because you recognize their value! There is a shop I have passed twice now on the other side of the river full of collected things, lightbulbs, twine, oddly shaped metal objects (unrecognisable to me, revealing much about my past, void of any kind of 'fixing' or handiness). A broken shoe might stay broken because I would never think to cut up bits of leather from the last. And even if I did, I would never know where to start. This man was so adept. He could fix things so physically. How wonderful! I felt inspired, the way I feel after I hear someone sing beautifully or play the piano, that kind of yearning determination to change, to learn. This salvaging, this recycling reminds me of that book Tinkers about the clock-repairman all told as a memory. Patching, fixing seems to make newness less brutal because it lets the old in when need be, weaving, supportive, it can all get pretty metaphorical. I felt so full of wonder as I watched this man work carefully, each move deliberate, making my shoe whole again, like magic. His shirt was soft and clean looking his hair recently trimmed and my mind 'moved to distant places.' I wondered if his wife handles these things. I tried to imagine. The bags gradually revealed a portion of their contents, some full of scraps and shoelaces, others metal clips, buckles. A tube of glue replaced to its perch after each use, thread, a stapler, a needle he sharpened and bent when he needed it to act as a hook. After he fixed my shoe, the other suddenly felt flimsy, so he reinforced it as well. He noticed the tear in my backpack and silently took in from me and inspected the seam. He took more bags from the shelf and leafed through the contents, taking his time, fastening the bag. His quiet assurance and steady movements entranced me. He passed me my backpack, perfectly mended. My shoes firmly wrapped around my feet once more. I paid him 40 rupees and continued on my way.