I never talk about my inspiration for my novel, Cinco de Mayo, because it’s so freakin’ trite. It’s that phrase: You never know a man until you’ve walked a mile his shoes. Banal tripe. You’ve probably bowled in someone else’s shoes, ever learn anything? You can never know the whole of someone else unless you’ve lived their whole life, fought their climates, listened to the late night whispers of their friends, heard the call of a chemical that’ll set things right and leaned against the gravity of families waxing and waning and spinning in place. It’s all so much. All too much. You can’t know a person because most of the time, you don’t even know yourself.
Unless you could. What would be helpful is a second party who knew the totality of your make up. What would another person think of you and your choices if they knew your whole story? That idea, that tiny question, lead to a lot of other questions. More than I could put in a book, really. That vapid statement about walking in someone else’s shoes. Disgusting, really. All that shared sweat. Hey, what’s that other phrase, about so many parts perspiration to some part inspiration? Yeah. I hate that one too.
How about a sequel to Cinco called "Bowled over (and over)" about a guy who has an unusual power to "see" other local peoples' lives when he wears a pair of bowling shoes that have been worn by hundreds of people in a city? just a thought!
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