He Wore Mismatched Socks

He Wore Mismatched Socks

A Reflection on the Beauty of Being Unmatched

Written by Kateb Shunnar

Man, lemme tell you how this morning started. It was around 6:45 a.m. in New Orleans, that crisp autumn kinda morning that sneaks up on you, gentle but stubborn like it’s sayin’, “Time to get up, sugar, whether you ready or not.” And me? I was wiped. Flat-out, dog-tired, eyes burnin’ like two candles somebody forgot to blow out. I’d been up all night, swearin’ under my breath, sweatin’, scrubbing, rearrangin’ tryin’ to make the house look like someone actually lived here instead of a tornado doin’ a slow dance on the furniture.

My friends and family who went to Xavier University were coming to my house for the weekend, and I’d spent the night pretendin’ I was on some HGTV marathon. Not that I was any good at it. Chairs leaned like they were about to collapse from exhaustion, dust bunnies hid like fugitives, and me? I was wrestlin’ with reality, thinkin’ maybe I’d been trapped in a cleaning montage from a movie I’d never agreed to star in. My brain was joggin’ laps around my skull, whisperin’ about sleep, while my body was hollerin’ “You done lost it, boy.”

I rolled outta bed, rubbin’ my eyes, sit down on the edge of the mattress for a hot minute just lettin’ it all sink in. My limbs felt like they belonged to somebody else. My mind? A tumbleweed of thoughts, dancin’ sideways, full of errands, worries, and random New Orleans oddities like how the air felt crisp today but not humid, thank the heavens. That, at least, was a mercy.

I shuffled through my room, huntin’ for the T-shirt, the belt, the hat the holy trinity of “Don’t scare anybody with your human mess.” And nothing. Not a stitch, not a fold, not a thread of hope. I muttered somethin’ that coulda been a prayer, coulda been a curse, and honestly, sounded like both. That’s when my eyes landed on the socks.

One sock black and green, Rick and Morty chaos splattered all over it like it had been through a dimensional war. The other sock pink, yellow, orange straight out of a Cheech and Chong fever dream, screaming, “Look at me, world! I don’t care about rules!” I held ‘em up like a gambler checkin’ his cards, squintin’ hard, thinkin’, “This is either a fashion crime or divine intervention.” I laughed. Loud, unashamed, full-throttle. And just like that, I slid them bad boys on, feet first into chaos.

It hit me not with a lightning bolt, not with a choir of angels, nah. Quiet, sneaky, subtle. The Spirit don’t care if my socks match.

And man, that’s when the thinking started. Life don’t match either. Joy and pain, blessings and mistakes, heartache and triumph they all show up together, mashin’ around like a Mardi Gras parade gone rogue. And here I am, one Rick and Morty foot, one Cheech and Chong foot, struttin’ through my living room like it’s my catwalk, fully aware nobody was watchin’, nobody had to see this beautiful mess. And that’s the trick, the real revelation. The Spirit don’t need your life to align like a line of dominos. It thrives in the chaos, the mismatched steps, the perfectly imperfect mess.

It took me back to somethin’ my grandmother used to tell me, one of those stories that could bend your mind if you let it linger long enough. She called it “The Tale of Old Stitchfoot.”

Old Stitchfoot lived out past the bend of Bayou Sauvage in a shack that leaned like it’d had enough of life and was takin’ a nap against itself. He was a cobbler but not some ordinary cobbler. This man could look at a worn-out shoe and tell you everything about the person who walked in it: how many heartbreaks, how many laughs, how many prayers, and how many secrets were stitched into every crease. And here’s the kicker: he never made a pair of shoes that matched. Never. One black, one blue. One tall, one short. People whispered about him like he’d lost his mind. “That man’s crazy,” they said. Some even giggled like they were watchin’ a circus, but all the while, curiosity tugged at their souls.

Stitchfoot didn’t care. He hummed little tunes nobody knew, stitched shoes that looked like they fell out of dreams, and believed anyone who wore them would start seeing life differently noticing the colors, the hidden harmonies, the little blessings they always walked past. A man might forgive a neighbor for stealin’ crab traps. A woman might catch a sunrise she’d never seen before. The shoes carried a kind of quiet magic the kind that lives in the mismatched, the messy, the unplanned.

One day, a preacher polished shoes, Sunday-best hat sittin’ like he owned the universe approached Stitchfoot. “Sir,” he said, peering at the crooked pair in Stitchfoot’s hands, “how you expect to honor the Almighty when your shoes don’t match?”

Stitchfoot smiled, slow, easy, like he’d been expectin’ that question all his life. “Reverend,” he said, “maybe the Almighty ain’t checkin’ shoes. Maybe He’s busy fixin’ hearts.”

Preacher left barefoot, mutterin’ to himself, questioning every neat, tidy thought he ever had. Stitchfoot? He vanished soon after, walkin’ into the fog like he’d always been part of it. Some folks swear they’ve seen a lone shoe along the levee at dawn a whisper, a reminder that life ain’t about matching. It’s about belonging.

I looked down at my own socks, mismatched as a Mardi Gras costume in July, and I felt a little like Old Stitchfoot misfit, misunderstood, but somehow, entirely whole. Life’s perfection ain’t measured by alignment. It’s measured by presence, by showing up, even when the colors clash.

I wandered into the kitchen, chilly autumn air sneaking through the slightly cracked window, tea kettle whistlin’ like it had opinions about my exhaustion. Steam curled up, snaking through the room, like tiny reminders that, somehow, things might just be okay. I thought about all the times I tried to make life neat, fussed over appearances, worried about every little step. And I realized maybe the mismatched parts, the chaotic little moments, the nights I’d stayed up sweatin’ and sweatin’ again, were exactly where the magic hides.

There’s a spiritual side to this chaos, I swear. That little rebellion slipping on mismatched socks, laughin’ at the absurdity, movin’ forward anyway it’s a lesson. A reminder that perfection is overrated, overrated like a gumbo without spice. The world don’t need polished. The Spirit don’t need perfect. It needs you present, messy or not, laughin’ at yourself, takin’ it all in, one step at a time.

And hell, sometimes, it’s just about laughin’. About not takin’ yourself too seriously. About seein’ the humor in chaos. One foot in Rick and Morty chaos, the other in Cheech and Chong rebellion that’s the metaphor. That’s life. That’s New Orleans. Messy, imperfect, soulful, and beautiful.

I chuckled, full-bodied and unrestrained, sittin’ in that kitchen alone, watchin’ the steam from my tea curl like a dance nobody else could see. No one was there to witness it, but I did. And that laugh, that small rebellion, was enough to remind me: the Spirit don’t need neatness. Just honesty. Just presence. Just you.

From that morning on, every day I put on mismatched socks, I remember: life ain’t supposed to match. Rules ain’t supposed to bind. Perfection ain’t supposed to matter. It’s the little things, the contradictions, the chaos that carry the true magic. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why New Orleans resonates so hard jazz spillin’ outta corners, streets twistin’ like they got their own rhythm, smells of pastries and coffee… well, tea in my case all of it a reminder that beauty and imperfection can dance together like they were always meant to.

So I walk through my mornings with a grin, one wild sock, one wilder, both perfectly mismatched, feet tappin’ to a rhythm only I can hear. And in those moments, I feel alive, messy, and fully myself. That’s the lesson. That’s life. That’s New Orleans.....................

Make A Donation