Feet, Don't Fail Me Now

I am given to understand that there are whole legions of fellow females who enjoy nothing more than an evening spent haranguing shoe clerks and seeking out that perfect pump, espadrille, or strappy stiletto. Apparently, there are gaggles of women who shop for shoes as recreation, much as men might approach a hunting weekend. I envy these feckless women and their average feet.

You see, I am not one of them. I do not enjoy shoe shopping, and have not since the tender age of, oh, ten, when I was forced to buy boys’ tennis shoes because the girly ones could not be made to fit. But back then I was just saddened. Now I have a full-on grudge against the industries of jewelry, fashion, and yes and always, shoes.

I am a woman on the taller side of average height. I have inherited from my ancestors a large frame. I like to think that I am a woman that is comfortable with her femininity and does, indeed, possess both style and flair. But due to my large build, I have been cursed to a life of never being able to buy watches that buckle around my wrist, bracelets that dangle from my arm, pants that hit my ankle, or shirts with wrist-length sleeves. And shoes…oh, the horror.

Let us clear away one misconception…this has nothing to do with weight. I have had these problems ever since I was well under my ideal weight, with a metabolism that could burn through a fifteen-pancake breakfast at ten and be hungering for hamburgers at twelve.

I well remember the promise that awaited each outing to the shoe store. I could see the nasty glitter in my mother’s eyes, but hope welled in my heart that this store would be the one where I would find my dream shoes. They would be fashionably retro, with modern styling. They would be chic, but classic. They would look extravagant, yet be within the family budget.

A poet once said that “hope is the thing with feathers.” Shoe stores, then, are the things with rifles. The end of an hour spent trying on shoes with my mother would end with me cradling a cardboard box in my lap and trying to hold back tears. Inevitably, inside the box nestled the dull black, boxy blah pumps with manmade uppers and tapered ends that would pinch my toes. And I would know that I would have to wear these until I could convince my mother that my feet had really grown another half inch.

I would wear them with the dresses that hit me in the wrong place and the pants that looked like high-waters years before Urkel would be famous. I would wear them with long-sleeved dresses whose sleeves were too long to be three-quarter-length and too short to be “long sleeves.” And I would look like…well…how can I put this delicately? Like a waif that had assembled bits of clothing from the basement of a long-defunct clothing warehouse.

Nonetheless, I found someone who fell in love with me, problem clothing and large feet included. And then our love was tested: I flew across the US to visit with his family, and on the second day out, my ten-dollar pumps broke. The heel snapped completely off. There was nothing for it—I would have to buy a new pair of shoes. With my erstwhile beau. In an unfamiliar city. I wanted the pavement to swallow my broken shoes and the rest of me with them.

But he came through. Never had anyone, even my own mother, sat so patiently beside me, fetching more and more boxes of shoes. “Do you like those?” he would ask, fingers hovering above yet another box. “We can go to another store.” And we did. We went to three stores. And left the last carrying a cardboard box that held an acceptable pair of pumps. They still hurt my feet, but at least I knew that the man I would marry knew about my shoe problem upfront.

I don’t remember when I lost my faith in shoe stores and began hating my feet, but I suffered for many years this way, spending as little time and money in shoe stores as possible, resigned to cheap shoes and painful steps. Something changed, though, as I grew and grew with the incipient arrival of my first child. I could not see my feet, and I felt sorry for them, much like Alice did when she grew so big in Wonderland.

I couldn’t buckle my shoes, and my feet hurt more than ever, but instead of hating them, I was filled with sympathy. After all, they were keeping me from toppling (most of the time). And they weren’t unattractive, for feet (from what I remembered-I hadn’t seen them for two months at this point). And many indignities had been visited upon them, from the gold lame four-inch heels to the flats that dug into my big toe. How I would hate to be my feet!

I stumbled along still for almost five years (I did eventually have that baby and another along the way, dear readers, and thank you for asking), until finally something snapped. My Dear Husband had been telling me for many months that I should visit a local shoe store, but I resisted. Hadn’t I tried shoe stores before? And I wasn’t made out of money. Those places were expensive!

But the last straw came as I prepared for a trip away from home, a trip wherein I would be wearing dress shoes for almost all day every day for eight days. A week before leaving on that trip, I attended a festival service in the shoes I planned to wear. I was singing, I was playing in the ensemble, I was here, I was there…I was in agony. I could hardly walk on my way out to the car. My shoulders slumped in resignation, I finally breathed defeat. 

I placed myself in the capable hands of a young blond person, and she rewarded my trust by bringing me pair after pair of black leather dress shoes in all styles and varieties. To my dismay, this would be an old-fashioned shoe store, where they put the shoes on you and take them off for you so you don’t muss your hands (or more likely, so you don’t muss the shoes). With her help, I found not one, but two pairs of shoes that fit me perfectly, although one of them she had to take in back and stretch just a tad so that my roguish pinky toes would be as comfy as the rest of my foot.

I’m in love with my dress shoes now. I am uncomfortable in my other shoes all week, but every Sabbath now I slide my foot into its own personal version of nirvana, often taking the physical form of a black ankle-strap pump…you know, it’s old fashioned, but stylish; chic, but classic; they look extravagant…mmm. You get the idea, dear reader. I think I’m going to go try on my shoes again.