stuffing the stockings

the perfect fit

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In the next life I would like more shoes. I am not exactly sure how this karma thing works, assuming like books and movies there are different genres: the cat that doesn’t destroy the sofa karma genre, the A+ student karma genre, the went-viral-on-TikTok karma genre, the oh look! another winning lottery ticket genre.

Evidently I was not kind to shoes in a past life and now, here with what the sales folks tsk-tsk at (very sturdy feet so wide I am assured of not tipping over in high winds) and my somewhat sad array I suppose I am paying for it. I do have a favorite yard sale find (ever) pair, the Italian leather sandals sadly now (karma?) with a stretched and broken strap: the girl told me she’d had them custom made (scrolling her phone, somewhere in Italy or was it Greece can’t remember where) but later changed her mind; dumbfounded emoji goes here. There are the good tennies (that fact might say it all) I hold back to keep them new-ish, and the nicely faded orange Cons missing their shoelaces; ever have Tang your mother made by scraping out the hardened sludge in the bottom of the jar? that orange. In the closet a pair of sort-of riding attire-esque brown boots bought in 1996 (also Italian) at a Nordstrom take-these-away-please and for less than thirty bucks sale, original sticker of $395 which I left on the bottom right heel until it wore away. My 1983 ski school uniform-issued Sorels that smell like pine pitch, and the pair of work boots I don’t mind stomping about in, and miss when the weather turns warm; it’s Oregon here, so there’s street cred in them thar re-soled heels, plus they make me feel very All Creatures Great and Small.

Here's the kicker: maybe this isn’t all that bad given you know, the world, but I dream of shoes. They waltz through my slumber, and stroll past as I beat my little fists on the windows of snoozeland scenes. Strappy sandals I see displayed in a fancy shop and when I press the door buzzer the pouty-mouthed shopgirl doesn’t look up from her phone. A favorite pair of flip-flops on a riverbank as my boat peels out into a faster current and I whisk off downriver, leaving them behind never to be seen again. Sexy supple shiny boots I follow through an airport until I realize I am late for my plane, can't find the check-in and after a long and frenzied search when I do, I realize I don’t have a ticket. 

I think the theme of that one is Not going anywhere.

In college in an oh dearie you were so young and innocent defy-the-Lit-Department move I wrote a story with the sentence He fucked the pennies out of her loafers. It was a traditional small southern school, boys outnumbering girls three to one, with What does your daddy do the school anthem. Boys in monogrammed boxers, girls in monogrammed espadrilles, me in K-Mart mocassins. I got an A, but the professor was from Maine, so who knows.

There was the issue of shoes in marriage number one. He hoped for some of those red high heels that evidently do come in triple extra-wide, much obliged dear drag queens of the world for demanding shoe width diversity. No can do mister, because exactly how would a river guide walk across a sandy beach in those things and good lord, what about walking on the raft, which I could do and rather nimbly: running across a bobbing flotilla and in aforementioned flip flops, when we needed something in a hurry and the boat bros had no clue where to find it, like another loaf of lunch bread. Sprite-like comes to (my) mind, but do we ever truly see ourselves? Maybe I’m an always-chin-up girl.

I wanted Birkenstocks. He said no. In those days husbands could and did and would, and evidently the wife was supposed to do, and with no complaint; that I do? The priest wrapping your two pairs of hands together, you admiring the mary janes peeking beneath the cream Laura Ashley, a matrimony disguised as a lesson in reading the fine print. The clearest thing I remember about our break up, aside from the restraining order I had to get and me hiding out at a motel, was the day I walked past a store that sold Birks. It was then I realized I could have something I wanted without the stinging backwash of an argument or him slamming his fist into something next to my face. The Christmas Eve on I-70 just outside of Vail when he dragged me from the Saab; not ski bums anymore, so ya better not cry over that Condo stocking stuffer cuz’ granddaddy’s lil trustfunder boy is coming to town, people merrily looking the other way driving to their ski chalet vacay.

What I wanted would be the brown leather clog ones, with the cut-outs and the buckle strap, the cork bottoms, the funky wide toe box that would in a weird way make me think my feet looked smaller, which I would wear right out of that life and into my next.

When I met the kind soul who would become this life’s never-saw-that-coming I was wearing a pair of short black faux leather boots I had paid 35 cents for at a TJ Maxx. I bought them mostly for the experience of paying 35 cents for a pair of shoes, but when I moved to L.A and the gal at Fred Segal gushed over them (I did happen to be wearing a pair of vintage levi's with rolled up cuffs which my sister had customized with vintage pillowcase fabric, and did happen to be carrying a nice purse which belonged to that ever-generous sibling) they took on a new patent and shiny light. The Halloween we met I was wearing those boots with green face paint and the obligatory witch hat. He was wearing a camel coat and loafers, which to this day I am not sure was actually a costume or if he had just come from the set of The Office, but no mind; days later when we were smitten and the path was unfurling and my kayaking river guiding mountain bike riding rock climbing backcountry skiing friends asked if he could paddle or row or climb, my answer was to shrug and say I liked his shoes.

I meant it as a joke, ha ha me, uber-outdoor girl dating this normal neighborhood dwelling management-looking type dude with the short hair and dry cleaned shorts (who ever heard of that), and it's all because of polished wingtips. I had no idea what I had or what would unfold of course, but that is life: you have it but you don't really see it until you trip over it.

I knew I was in love, oh for crying out loud, love! a good thing and the way it just walks up and hello, the day they were waiting on the doorstep and in pink. How did he know my size? Each with a small turquoise blue flower, the Lily Pulitzer leather flip flops of my dreams. They’re in a shoebox, minus one toddler-plucked and chewed to smithereens flower, under our bed. On sunny days I take them out, slide in my left foot first for luck, then my right. Twenty-three years later, still the perfect fit.