There is always a brief frisson when you step into a new shoe.
The foam awaits your footprint. You will be this sole’s first mate. There are no pebbles in the treads.
But let’s be honest with each other, as honest as a cat.
There is no match for a holey old friend.
When you are invited to the Met Gala, you may choose Chanel stilettos. When you will see your judgy cousin, you may brush the suede on your mint Vejas.
But on a drowsy Sunday morning, or a knotty Thursday night, you want the instep that anticipates your moves. You want the laces as soft as hoodie drawstrings. You want every smudge and scratch and blemish that time has earned.
You want Harvey,* marbled with years and forgiveness. He is as handsome as Harrison Ford at eighty-one. He is handsome enough not to care who considers him handsome. He wears years of weather like a cloak of stars.
He has fallen asleep to the jazz of the rain, and risen expecting the big-band blare of breakfast. He has wandered the earth until it toughened his paws, without selling his soft heart at any price. He has come, at last, to the Community Room of Tabby’s Place, where age is a suggestion, not a sentence.
His eye has drooped with Horner’s Syndrome, and his ear has bent for the whispers of fairies.
His nose snickers with rhinitis, but Harvey chooses to believe life laughs with all who love.
He has auditioned many lives while pounding the pavement to today’s cuddle pile. He has given them all the lead role in turn.
He is the sum total of every forehead kiss, and every night he believed, with no evidence, that he would get here. He is a brown wool boot sock that shows your toes but still keeps you warm. He is not afraid of the rain. He is not afraid of anything, except pepperoni shortages. He is the friend who will wrap you in his flannel when it rains, even if it leaves him short-sleeved. He is the friend you want when you are threadbare.
You want Farva, young but unraveled. He is missing a few buttons. He could only crown a calendar at Tabby’s Place. His juvenile feet have run marathons. His body has dabbled in delinquency. He lives with idiopathic epilepsy, an elegant way of saying he suffers seizures that the finest doctors cannot explain.
Farva has grabbed more moments than his seizures can steal. He has seen more than the seraphs with a thousand eyes. His bare toes wiggle in the sand of memories. Farva is the teenager with a grandfather’s gaze.
He brandishes greed without regrets. He must have all the affection. He must know the touch of every kind hand. He must add layers to the laughter-cake that humans carry so cautiously. He is the friend who carries you back to whimsy when you have wandered far from home.
He is the friend who is so old and so new, the terms lose their meaning. He is the friend you want when your courage has come untied.
You want Malawi,** who walks on small feet but crosses landscapes. She has come to Tabby’s Place from North Jersey, and from south of reasonable hope. She is FeLV+. She is unflinchingly positive.
When bad news visits, she offers it her slippers and a cup of chamomile. She soothes circumstances, until they sing along. She is a revolutionary for unreasonable happiness.
Malawi shares her name with a country, because she is enormous. Malawi shares her name with one of the poorest countries on the globe, because she has suffered. Malawi shares her light as though her life depends on it. 
She is the friend who cups your chin with both hands. She is the friend who knows when you need to cry, and knows when you need to be distracted with YouTube videos about baboons.
She is the friend you want when “no” has left you barefoot and begging.
In this stiff and leathery life, we want the “yes” of home. We want the candle in the window at the end of the lane. We want to know that hope is hardy when softened by time. We want to wiggle our toes with the ones who giggle with, not at, us.
We won’t find it in the display case. We won’t spot it on a trophy.
We will find it soft around our feet, rubbing figure-eights around our ankles. Or are they infinity signs?
*Adopted, on which more soon. YES! HARVEY! ADOPTED! YES I AM YELLING!
**ALSO! ADOPTED! YES! MALAWI! EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!