If The Shoe Fits

It seems like I have tons of shoes jumbled on the floor of my closet and kicked underneath my bed. Do any of y’all have that problem? Shoes are everywhere, except by the front door. I won’t leave them there, after all my recent research on feng shui (that’s not pronounced feng shooey!).

You see I learned at the Feng Shui Tips page that if you leave shoes near the door, “the chi (energy) rides with the wind and will collect all the smell of those shoes and slippers into your house causing sickness.” Well, now I can’t have that! I don’t want to go messing with chi, because karma is already kicking my butt.

It’s not that I’m in competition with Imelda Marcos, who had over 1,000 pair of shoes. Nor with King Charles X of France, who supposedly stepped into a new pair of shoes each day during his reign from 1824-1830. I’m not good with math, but that’s a lot of shoes!

I don’t even have a big variety of shoes, because I buy several pairs of the same kind. Usually they are low heeled and basic black. Those were some more of those lessons I learned “the hard way.”

Sometimes people ask me if I dress in costume when I tell stories. No, I do not. I was asked in the early days to tell stories for a Christmas banquet, and I was fine with it —- until they asked if I would wear a “cute little Christmas tree” costume they had found. Suddenly, I remembered another engagement, and referred the client to a different storyteller. I didn’t like that storyteller, and I knew she would be hungry enough to take the gig. Oops! Now you know that I am evil.

Still, because I’m performing I sometimes get the irresistible urge to “look the part.” Sometimes I like to wear “artsy fartsy” outfits and “cute shoes,” although that happens less frequently as I get older. I try to rationalize my lack of desire to play dress-up by saying that I want my audience to “remember the story, not what I was wearing.” That sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s a lie; I’m just lazy. And, I’m old!

Twenty years ago, I could get away with wearing high heels and funky boots to work. But, these last few years, if I work all day in “cute shoes” and then try to drive home for five hours from east of Podunk, TX, my feet suffer. They swell up like Jimmy Dean’s Pure Pork Sausage Links.

But, the main reason I won’t wear cute shoes, is because of the kindergarteners. It’s true. A few years back, I had found some sparkly red shoes that looked like something Dorothy would wear in The Wizard of Oz. [ Actually, in the book, Dorothy’s shoes were silver, but Technicolor had just been invented, so the movie folks changed them to red just to show off.] I decided to wear these shoes one day at a local school, because I thought the munchkins would like them. One little girl certainly did.

The children, as usual, were on the library floor in front of me. They were all sitting “criss cross, applesauce with their hands in their laps,” as the librarians so often phrase it. Now, I like my audience pretty close to me, because I like to be able to interact with them. On the front row that day there was a delightful little girl with blonde hair hanging to her shoulders. She looked like a cherub with her rosy cheeks and blue eyes. The effect was a little bit marred by the snotty nose, but she was beautiful anyway.

As I began telling stories, I was standing directly in front of her. Then I noticed something very odd. The little girl was staring at my shiny red shoes with a very serious expression on her face. Ever so slowly, she began to bend at the waist getting closer and closer to examine my shoes. Then, she stuck out her little pink tongue and licked my shoe! She licked it! I was totally bumfuzzled.

I don’t know if she thought it was a lollipop, or what. I was so surprised that I totally forgot what I was talking about. I forgot what story I was even telling! I forgot my name! The teachers were cracking up, and I was barely managing to keep a straight face. I had to just start telling a new story…and I stood on the other side of my “stage!” I was wishing I could click the heels together and say, “I want to go Home,” and be there!

Then, a few years ago, I was living in an apartment with a tiny closet, and only the light from two lamps in my bedroom. I’d been out late the night before, and could barely drag out of bed at four thirty to get dressed for my gig. It was unexpectedly sleeting outside, which meant that I wasn’t going to get a leisurely cup of coffee. I had to get out the door.

Skidding on the ice out to my car was hazardous, but I made it without a fall. Getting to the school was even more perilous. We so seldom have ice on the road here in Texas that no one knows how to drive in it. People who are ordinarily sane and rational begin to drive like idiots.

Traffic was a mess, and by the time I got to the school, my first audience had been waiting on me for about ten minutes. The librarian was almost hysterical and, since I am never late, I was pretty mortified. A few minutes later, I was more so, when the kids started giggling and pointing at my feet. I looked down to see that I had on one brown shoe and one black shoe, of very different styles. They didn’t even have the same heel height. No wonder getting to the car had been so difficult.

It just doesn’t pay for me to wear cute shoes. Can you see why I just buy several pairs of basic black shoes? They are boring, sure, but at least I’m wearing shoes!

When I was a kid, my Momma always joked that we were “part Indian.” She said we were from the “Blackfoot Tribe,” because we kicked our shoes off on the last day of school and rarely wore them all summer. That was just fine with Momma most of the time. Not always.

One day, back in the 1960’s, my Momma took us shopping at the brand spanking new shopping strip, which had a Montgomery Wards in it. You have to realize that this was Big Time! She was pretty excited about the trip and was chattering about what she was going to buy for us. We walked into “Monkey Wards” as my Daddy called it, when my mother looked down and realized I was standing there plum barefooted. The bottoms of my feet were indeed filthy black from the asphalt on the street.

Momma was so embarrassed that she hissed under her breath, “You go to the car and stay there!” Then, she proclaimed very loudly for the Whole Wide World (or at least everybody in Monkey Wards) to hear, “What idiotic mother would let her child come to a store with no shoes on her feet? She should be ashamed of herself.” Momma zipped out of the store pretending not to know me! All I could do was go stand out in the parking lot beside the locked car on the hot asphalt. I was hopping from one foot to the next until she finally finished her shopping—about two hours later.

I know better than to go barefoot in public now. The cute shoes in my closet need to go away, so I won’t be tempted. And, I have to cull my selection of just plain ordinary shoes, because they all look alike anyway. Most of them are in good shape, and I hate to throw them away, because they don’t stink or anything. So, I guess it’s time to box them up and ship them off to Tagged as: Artsy Fartsy Stuff, feng shui, Give From The Heart, shoes, Soles 4 Souls, Storytelling