Burgundy.

Wrinkles on my shoes and face.

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In university I started thinking about my skin more than I had before. My particular design course happened to be composed mostly of women, so I became privy to conversations that had previously eluded me. A great many of these were about skin-care routines. Apparently I was committing many atrocities, including neglecting to apply sunscreen to my face every morning. Every morning seems like overkill, I thought. Alongside my Photoshop classes and Art History lectures, I began learning about my skin and all the ways in which I was failing to take care of it. I decided that I, too, needed a skin-care routine. After attempting to do research on my own, but ultimately getting lost in a sea of serums that I could barely distinguish between, I turned to a friend. I sat her down in our university coffee shop and asked her to explain to me everything I needed to do to achieve and maintain healthy skin. Slowly. Step by step. The more I listened, the clearer it became to me just how much of her process I felt was unnecessary. There were products whose purpose I didn’t fully understand, and whose ingredients I couldn’t hope to pronounce. I settled on the the most essential skin-care habit: washing my face daily, applying sunscreen in the mornings and moisturiser in the evenings (I can’t stand the feeling of both sunscreen and moisturiser on my face). When I took a step back to evaluate why, exactly, this group of twenty-year-olds was so concerned about their skin, I lost my appetite for vegan face cleansers and rose quartz rollers.

Sunscreen is a vital part of my habit now—a few of my loved ones have had precancerous marks cut out of their skin precisely because they underestimated the power of the Sun. That’s not a risk I’m interested in taking. I realised, though, that many of the steps in the skin-care routines of my young friends and of young people online were in an effort to prevent wrinkles. I think that’s a bit like fighting against gravity. I’m rounding the corner of twenty-five and I can already see crows feet beginning to form. Whenever I laugh, my eyes laugh a little longer than the rest of my face.

Before he retired, my grandpa worked as a buyer for a shoe company based in Cape Town. He was there for most of his career, and his job had him work with numbers, leather samples and lots of suppliers. He got to know the industry and the people, and he was well known and loved. While he was at the company, he had a pair of dark burgundy loafers made. He made sure that they were welted (a particularly long-lasting and high quality way of binding the shoe upper to the sole) and that the uppers were made of beautiful, genuine leather. The shoes are stunning. At the time, he was invited to many events that required him to wear a suit, but he saved the shoes to wear to a more special event. They sat in his closet and waited for the perfect occasion. The first time they were worn were by me, when I attended my best friend’s wedding. We were on a farm and my burgundy Italian loafers were totally out of place. It was still the perfect occasion, I think, because my grandpa had given his shoes to me so that I’d look the part for my best friend—farm or no. My grandpa had never found the right time to wear them, to begin using them up. Only the right moment could justify the unblemished leather becoming scuffed and creased. He had gone to great length to acquire the shoes, and wanted their use to be accordingly special. I’ve worn the shoes a few times since, to Christmas parties and to funerals, and the shoes certainly reflect it. There are wrinkles in the leather where the shoes have taken the shape of my feet. The soles are ever so slightly thinner now than they were when my grandpa gave the shoes to me. One day, after many more weddings and parties and funerals, I will have worn them out. Despite the welting and the leather and taking careful care of them, the shoes will only last so long. I think, though, that if the shoes could choose, they’d rather be in the hay on a wedding day, than in a box at the bottom of the cupboard.

I share my grandpa’s thinking. I hesitate to open a special bottle of wine, asking myself if this moment is exceptional enough to be celebrated by such a prised item. I also think there is a lot of joy in using something up. I think of the fabulous times I’ve had finishing the last piece of birthday cake or emptying batteries playing with remote control boats in my grandparents’s pool. I think that some things are even designed to be used up, like croissants or jeans or notebooks. A old notebook, dogeared and ink-filled, is far more beautiful to me than an equally old one which has been preserved, never written in. I think jeans are supposed to be worn and loved so much that they eventually rip through. I am not advocating for the senseless destruction of anything—but I am in favour of putting a few miles on those shoes. My skin, too, I think. Perhaps this opinion is coloured by my male privilege, but I don’t want to fear my incoming wrinkles. I don’t particularly want them, but somehow, they seem to me to be a kind of proof of life. They show everyone that I’ve lived in my skin. They do also tell me that my skin is getting older—but what a privilege that is. Whether my skin or my shoes show more signs of age, I am trying to recognise this as a sign of life, rather than a sign of wear. I also want to try and flip the way I think about special things like those shoes. Maybe I shouldn’t wait for an event special enough to warrant wearing them, maybe I can make an event feel more special to me by wearing such beautiful, cherished shoes. Life was designed to be lived, used up, sucked dry. Wrinkles and all.

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All that from this twenty-four year old. My perspective must contain some naiveté, but I hope you can excuse that. If you enjoyed this journal, please share it with someone you love.