I write this entry from my candle-lit living room painted red with stars in New York City. I have gone around the entire world and come back to you…
The journey started on January 26th from New York to London, and brought us on an adventure covering the UK and Europe in our very own gypsy rock and roll caravan. This ended after almost two months and then we flew over Russia, over India, over Singapore, to our destination of Australia and from Australia we flew on tops of clouds over the sea to Los Angeles, then we spanned the US and here I sit. Our last date in Australia was their last day of Summer, and we landed in the States for our first day of Spring. Time travel, indeed.
Which brings me to my longtime wandering partners….my shoes.

The shoes in the picture above were the very first shoes that took me out of the States for the first time to perform in Germany in 2007. These shoes I wore at almost every single Emilie Autumn show I’ve ever performed in. These shoes have carried me on stages all over the world from Mexico to Australia, from Latvia to London, from Paris to Prague. I was in these shoes the first time someone ever asked me for my autograph (and I was shocked!), the first time I ever fan danced internationally (it was in Paris in early 2008 at the Locomotive next to the Moulin Rogue!), the first Rat Game I ever played and the first time I met many of you. These shoes mean alot to me and they carry their own magic.
On the last night in Brisbane, Australia, they were almost at the end of their rope. Over the past month, a strap had broken (fixed with a safety pin), the fronts were worn through to the tan material that held them together (which I Sharpied back to black), and the bottom sole started to come off and was expertly duct taped back into place. I knew when I stepped on the stage in Brisbane, completing our Winter 2010 tour and our last Australian date for now, that the shoes were performing their own swan song.
I wanted to bring them home and clean them, and put them in a beautiful glass box for me to look at on occasion and recall all our wonderful adventures. However, my gypsy heart had another idea and it did not involve keeping them locked up in a box in NYC. It was only proper, I felt, to honor these shoes, by leaving them on the opposite side of the globe from where they started, by leaving them in the magic place known as Australia. It was my way of thanking them, these old friends that had carried my feet on so many great adventures, to let them retire thousands of miles from where they began.
I wrote a note explaining their story, and included a line of my own intention….that my feet, missing them, would be called back to the other side of the world always, for more rich adventures.
I am sentimental. I did look back at them sitting there before I closed the door and whispered a “thank you”……
I will return.