'You have to choose to wake up'

Lessons from an Italian cobbler who teaches shoe-making classes on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

I’m back from an adventure that I dreamt up last fall when the days started getting dark and we got an invitation to attend one of Frank’s friends’ weddings in Spain.

I probably would have stayed home this year if I had known what a nightmare we were about to experience with my rental house, which I’ve started to joke has cost me a college education. But I’ve been getting a college-level education this past year about carrying on with life when a wrench gets thrown in your plans. (Or you fall on a chair and break your tailbone.)

So, that’s how we found ourselves in Palma de Mallorca at the end of May, thankful that we’d already paid off the hotel and airfare, devastated that going on the trip meant we would have to miss Julian’s graduation ceremony. (Reaching that milestone is a wild, tender story that is mostly his to tell, and I hope he does tell it one day. In the meantime, I get to shout from the hilltops about how proud I am of his accomplishment. I’m so proud of you, Julian!)

One of the non-refundable adventures we’d booked was a shoe-making class with an Italian woman who recently opened a new studio in a quiet part of the city near one of the food markets.

Martina Candela grew up in Italy and made her way to Spain as an adult, where she now works as a cobbler and hosts hands-on workshops.

Early last week, Frank and I ambled our way over to her place next to one of the city’s big food halls. Martina was as laid-back as you’d expect a millennial Mediterranean cobbler to be, her hair in a messy bun and an apron over her cut-off shorts and tan midriff. She gave us a quick explanation of the class and showed us the kinds of sandals we could make that day. There were about eight different combinations of straps and several dozen colors and textures of leather.

We all hemmed and hawed over what we might choose, making jokes about the dirty Birkenstocks we all had at home and what colors might work for our personalities. The German sisters who joined us got to work on two pairs of intricate designs made with bright, eye-catching colors. Frank and I, oddly, went for muted palettes. He stuck with black because he always sticks with black. I chose navy blue because I don’t have any navy sandals, and I still carry a little What Not to Wear shame about picking colors and patterns that are so loud that you can’t hear what I’m saying.