Shoes

I was recently awakened to the idea that the shoes you wear may quite certainly make the impression about you.  And, for a fact, I know that the shoes that you wear are important to the activity you are embarking. 

Take for instance my recent foray into 14 miles of back country where I wore a study, yet light weight cross-training shoe carrying almost 30 lbs of gear and within 5 miles my arches were not just barking but SCREAMING at the intensity of pain they felt with each step.  Later in the hike, a through-hiker on the PCT acknowledged that my choice, while admiral, was illusory given my load.

I remember years ago when I was a recent devotee to backpacking that I arrived at the trail head without the shoes required.  I simply forgot!  I had to buy new ones at the last outpost town and hope that they worked out.

When I was 12 or so I remember being ridiculed by a teacher because I wore cowgirl boots to school.  She belittled me in front of everyone saying, "what? you think you are going to clean the horse stalls?" and told me to sit in the back of the room for the class because she didn't want my stench to interrupt her.  

Every time I see a pair of sexy boots that I'd just die for I hear her cackling in the back of my mind and I move on to more sensible shoes for the urban set.

Yet, I often go outside my bubble and I see women, clearly not clearing out horse stalls wearing boots and other quite undignified footwear in the setting of choice and they seem quite sexy.  What gave them the godly right to walk around like that??  And why don't I feel the same about my shoes?

And then, it became apparent in the last year how my work colleagues began to comment upon my footwear.  It was often with surprise and impressionable glee that they commented on my latest pumps, high heels and sleek ballerinas.  It signaled, for me, a shift in my career from, doer to overseer. I used to lug these heavy Rubbermaid tubs of educational items from school to school as a Coordinator.  But now, as a Specialist, I get to marvelously sit in my office whist a staffer does the schlepping.  Has the change in authority and priority really changed who I am?

I have this one friend who wears ridiculously high high heels.  Well, actually there are a few of them in the office.  They all seem to balance effortlessly as they push buttons on the copier and fax documents. I've often fantasized myself walking into the office sensually with everyone looking at me as I pass and sort of acknowledging that I've got my game on.  It's yet to happen.  When I do wear the fancy heels, I am often barefoot by mid day.

Then there was the recent long distant trip on I-5 where I saw surreptitiously strewn evidence of a suitcase's entire contents.  And what caught my eye, more than anything else was the tiny little girls' sandals that were tossed along the cement embankment between the swift lanes of the interstate highway signaling much more than their presence as outrageous.  I saw, in that flash of a second the loss of innocence.  I saw the fleetingness of youth. The preciousness of the very seconds we have, when we, as adults, so unrelenting force our children into our schedules, that we hurriedly shove their tiny feet into shoes with abruptness and frustration.  And all they are doing is being young.

When I was 20 I bought my first pair of Birkenstock sandals because it symbolized a movement in my life.  It re-identified me from one identity to another.  I wore those sandals for years before they wore out their soles with defiance that I'd ever be anything other than that rambunctious 20-something who bought them with her daddy's money.

And daily, I find myself, shoving my son's feet into much too small shoes in an effort to be on time and quite frankly because I can't afford to buy new ones.  And he smiles at me knowingly as I shyly admit failure.
Sometimes the pain of motherhood isn't something you can walk away from.  

And shoot, here I was, 14 miles into the back-county in the Sierras with shoes that were not sufficient for me and I had only 14 miles to hike out.  What was I gonna do?

Walk out.  Just like I walked in.  The pain, yes, indescribable.  But that didn't make it into the Facebook posts.  No.  What was important was that I DID IT.  And even more, I did it regardless of the gear lacking, the companion lacking, the time lacking, the son, who was with his father, yet to be ready to do such a hike, was lacking.  The shoe choice, that I spent too much money one, was lacking.... I did it.

You know, it was funny because I walked all around the campsite, the hot springs without shoes, in the grass, among sage, rose thorns and stinging nettle without any issue.  I felt free.

Today I dared wear high heels to work and wow! the pain I felt as my yet-to-heal arches gave me warning that such shoes are not for the kind of girl I've become.  I smiled to myself as I walked comfortably between offices and copy machines barefoot knowing in my heart that I was never the kind of girl to wear them in the first place.

Shoes.  We talk of Jesus and the shoes he wore.  Or how it's a sacred practice of removing shoes before entering temples.  How the sick are washed at the feet of synagogue by healers.  I remember the first time I put shoes on my son.  It was a major transition between being completely helpless and dependent upon me and finally realizing his own potential as a human.  We walk upright.  That's what humans do.

"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare."- Voltaire.  

Does walking have anything to do with being authentic?  Just wondering.  And how do shoes define that?