Our Best Foot

Years and years ago I had a pair of extremely wonderful black shoes.  They were beautiful.  They were expensive.  They were glamorous.  They were .... damn painful to wear for longer than an hour if I had to walk.  You know the sort of shoe of which I write.  The kind that stop you from passing by the store window because your eye catches sight of the shoe that speaks of excitement, glorious follies and evenings of luxury.  These are the shoes that designers create so that we can strut and observe our reflections with wonder.  Those of us blessed with shorter lower limbs gain length and by default a degree of elegance not present in our more natural state.

These are the shoes that haunt me.  By the time I was twenty eight my knees were telling me that any heel over two inches was going to leave me in pain the next day.  An orthopediac surgeon informed me that high heels were the reason why he could afford European vacations.  He went on to say that when he saw a woman in high heels he was always amazed that any human could contort their feet into angles that no knee could support for long without damage.  I knew what he was saying was true but then again a new pair of red heels in my cupboard suggested that there was a part of my brain that liked to make me venture into irresponsible behaviour.

By thirty two I was down one and a half inches in the heel department. My highest heels were cast into the deep shadows of the cupboard to be dragged out by my eleven and eight year old for dressing up games.  The new shoes were not red.  They were not high heeled and they were edging me towards middle age.

Forty two and a move to the USA forced me to realise that my feet had become almost Hobbit like.  True they were not covered in a mass of hair but they had (sigh) become Ws.  When I first tried on a size 8 I wondered what had happened to my feet in the last month.  I had been a size 6 in SA.  In the US I was two sizes bigger and ... oh here is the terrible truth a W (WIDE)!

Let me explain:  in the US where they have a size 0 in the ladies department for clothing and you can get a size 14 W (Woman's - really just a term for a plus size) in the shoe department political correctness is cast to the wind.  Ws are blazoned on the labels.  Ws are prominently displayed for all to see. As you sit down to try on a pair of shoes no idle passerby can fail to note the fact that you have WIDE feet.  The W is usually in some bright colour so that all can be alerted and make haste before they are squashed by Big Foot.  What is even worse is that the Ws are usually the ugliest shoes you can imagine.  That nice little pair of size 8 cream coloured sandals are turned into strident green size 8 W.  It is as if the manufacturer wants you to know that you should really be hiding your feet beneath floor length dresses.  Your feet, they say, are freakishly wide.  You are the offspring of some hybrid beings who once roamed the savannas and should have died out by now.  Yet here you are - trying to find footwear for feet that are suited only to some sort of covering so that no one can see them.

I have tried going up a size - no luck.  I have tried squeezing my feet into shoes that don't have that W marking but they ... I'll draw a curtain across that description.  I have  bought cheap shoes, expensive shoes and neither have made me feel good about my feet.

Enter the Flat. These shoes have become incredibly popular. Which makes sense.  No heels to cause pain. Simple footwear that can go from day to night. The only problem is that my feet in flats look worse than ever.  I shudder at the mere thought.  Instead of somewhat wide feet they become boats.  Flats make even narrow feet seem wider than they are so imagine what they do to a wide foot!  I have even had sales assistants step back from me when I have tried flats on, their faces reflecting their sense of shock.  "How," I can read their thoughts, "Can this woman even consider buying those shoes for HER feet?"

Added to all this trauma is the fact that my feet have entered old age about thirty years before the rest of me.  When I was doing research in gerontology many years ago I asked my informants what advice they would give to those younger than they.  The most common response was "Take care of your feet!"  I now know why they said that.  And they were correct.  Neuropathy is lousy and it hurts.  So good shoes are a must.  The issue is to find something that is between looking as if I have been scrounging through the unwanted bin at a flea market and the three inch heels of yesteryear.  It would be nice to find shoes that are made for walking and that don't look as if you herd sheep for a living.  The average sales assistant in the local shoe departments have even less knowledge than I do in the does and don'ts of shoes, and zero interest in having a satisfied customer leave the store.  I have tried track shoes of various manifestations.  I have tried boots.  I have tried sandals.  I have surrendered to the reality that my glory days of footwear have passed.

I have a friend who adores shoes.  She not only adores them better still she can wear them. In our youth she wore them with aplomb while I staggered around trying to look as if I was not going to topple over at any moment.  And that I think is where the rot set in.  She kept at it. Ten thousand hours later she is an expert.  One hundred hours later I am not. She wafts into restaurants in heels. I stagger like a drunk on a binge in half inch heels.  She dances in heels.  I watch.  She could most probably pursue a purse snatcher in heels.  I could shout for help as I watched him disappear from sight.  Her shoes are beautiful. Mine are practical. Her shoes would be the prima ballerina - mine would not make it to the corp de ballet.

If shoes reflect our personalities than mine has become dull and flat.  True I have two pairs of quarter inch heels that are semi-decent but they -sigh - are not the beauties of yesteryear.  I notice the shoes of the young with a degree of resentment but when a woman of my age strolls past in footwear that is not completely utilitarian I wince.  My feet twinge and cramp in sympathy but my sighs are no less deep for the flash of yellow emotion that makes me wonder why some of us are pushed into the sensible shoe years before our time.

I personally blame Disney and Cinderella for my shoe issues.  After all the story is really all about the shoes.  The dress, the carriage, the hair ... and the shoes! Without them the story would have had an unhappy ending.  There are hundreds of versions of the story but I personally place the blame on Disney's version.  It is only with age that I have come to sympathise with the ugly sisters. They may have been mean but I think their feet were the cause of their unpleasantness.  Aching feet do not make a person cheerful.  Those poor girls ....

In my dreams I wear Jimmy Choo shoes and have a pair of Louboutin in the cupboard, there is a 615.00$ pair of Fendi's sensible sandals, and a pair of kitten heels (yes my dear there is such a phrase and the image it creates is worth at the very least a chuckle) by Weitzman ... In reality I buy shoes where I can find a pair of 8W that does not make me grab for my dark glasses while I gag and with a price tag that does not mean I have to sell a kidney.


And now I shall leave my musing to find my comfortable slippers and potter around the house. Ahhh slippers ... sheepskin, fleece lined ...