On Shoes

 I love shoes…always have, and anyone who has known me for a while knows this. I think shoes are a part of my spiritual DNA because the lure they hold for me is unmistakable. At one time whenever I passed a display of elegant shoes, I could swear I heard an unearthly voice whispering to me, “Buy me!”, and I wasn’t always able…or willing…to resist its siren call. It all began when I was a young teenager and bought my first pair of high heels…four-inch platforms, black patent leather, open toes with ankle straps. I wore them all day until my feet almost fell off. From then on I was hooked. Believe me, if my veteran hips and ankles could hold me up, I’d have a pair of the new, killer five inchers right now!

My fancy place

There was a good reason for my love of these babies. Shoes were my fancy place. Wearing feathered stitching on the seams and metal fittings around the toes, I would toss my head, kick up my heels and say to myself, “Watch me!”, as I stepped into what that time of my life held for me. It was exciting; it was wonderful…and it was then. Oh, I still love shoes, and I can feel the old beckoning whenever I pass an array of beautiful footwear, but they are not my fancy place any more. When I step out into what this time of my life has for me, it is no longer nifty shoes that carry me along, partly because my body can no longer handle the height and imbalance of super shoes, partly because I am not a mono-pronged person. I find that there is not only one way to create life situations but many means available, some of which I had not imagined in my shoe years.

Step out of it

I think that all of us have had a fancy place in us somewhere, not like mine perhaps, but a place we could count on when we participated in our own lives. It might have been an exciting place, a comfortable place or maybe a goad that provoked an uncomfortable jab to get us going. Whatever that place was, sooner or later it did not fit the growing human being that we were becoming. We had to step out of it. We can always love it for what it has meant to us. Whether it was difficult or friendly, it helped bring us to where we are . Still there are other openings, other places that are ours to follow, and we deny them at our peril. A single-eyed approach can create stuckness when it goes on too long.

Fear has its value

There can be fear, yes, and it need not keep us in one place. Fear has its value. It tells us that something before us needs our attention, and we are not yet willing to give it. We will, though, because the shoes may be just too tight now. Nevertheless I keep a pair of the fancies in the back of my closet…for old times’ sake.