Photo by Olivia Perillo
The Tree of Soles is actually three trees now. No one really knows when the first shoe was thrown, but it was before Hurricane Lili, which brought the original Tree to her knees, laces tied up all around her. The souls kept coming, responding to the message “to hang your burdens” here. Your soles, that is.
Looking down, I realize I have forgotten to bring an offering of my own. The gray slides, purchased from Target, would be no great loss to me, except that they are so easy to slip on in the mornings, with the baby in my arms and our skin craving sunlight. There happens to be a single boot in a plastic bag in my passenger seat, picked up from the cobbler on the way here—a broken sole made new. In some ways it would be perfect, except that I love those boots, and fall will come, eventually.
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Photo by Olivia Perillo
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Photo by Olivia Perillo
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Photo by Olivia Perillo
I observe a pair of pointed heels, little rosettes of leather on the vamp, resting at the root of the tree, arranged together at a tilt, just so. I wonder if they were abandoned here because they were loved, or because they were not? Nike sneakers, bedazzled cowboy boots, red Converse, a lone Chaco. Two tiny, pink rubber boots nailed upright and horizontal. You can almost picture the child who once wore them, walking up the trunk sideways. In places the shoes seem to swarm, claustrophobic and choked, they somehow lose their shoe-ness, seeping into the tree with the cicada shells and wasp nests. Disintegrating and misshapen, rotating slowly with the breeze, they look like something else, something that is alive, or rather, was. Is this sense of unease the essence of the soul/sole? The burden?
A little research reveals other shoe trees around the globe. A street in Flensburg, Germany, is famous for its “shoefiti.” In other communities and cultures, shoes are thrown to celebrate endings and beginnings: completing the school year, starting a marriage. Along Route 66, shoe trees suggest a shared journey, wanderers following in one another’s footsteps. We’ve walked this way, and now, so have you.
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Photo by Olivia Perillo
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Photo by Olivia Perillo
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Photo by Olivia Perillo
The origins of these sole trees are universally mysterious, and this specimen in Ossun, Louisiana, is no exception. The lore around this place is simply stated, and infinitely interpreted. We do not know how it began or who began it, only that as is so often the case, people understood, and followed suit. We humans can be rather cute in that way, nodding wordlessly across the ages as we leave our sandals dangling beside a stranger’s sneakers on this old gravel road.
I leave nothing at the Tree of Soles today, not because the burdens I carry are light, but because they are the ones I have prayed for. Sleepless nights and cold coffee, hair sour with spit-up. One day I might return with my son to show him this shrine, and the stories it holds, a ritual of unburdening. One day we might need it. But for now, he knows nothing of such things, and his tiny fresh feet, born in the blaze of summer, have never known shoes.
You can visit the Tree of Soles at 1009 Cocodril Road, Scott.
