if the shoe fits

My Zen constantly ebbs and flows. One minute, everything clicks; the next, woe is the world. I can tell which way the wind blows by my footwear. If life is good, I care; if I’m simply living, it’s black flats with every outfit, worn until even the smallest puddles provoke water rot on my soles. Itchy.

I think, if I was to answer K. honestly, it’s the same reason I write. It’s more a reactive thing for me than a proactive one. A consequence.

You see, I have big feet. Gi-normous ones. Ladies’ size 11 wide. Men’s? Size nine. Skis. Thus, shoes were always an afterthought when I was growing up, contemplated just once a year during the annual family pilgrammage to Minot, a once-great beacon for the almighty south-Saskatchewan dollar prior to the Walmart invasion in 1994. Payless Shoes had yet to make its debut in a mall near you, and since it was the only store that reliably had my size in semi-decent styles, I stocked up. And then I went to Appleby’s.

Even with a Payless on every corner though, it took me a long time to get excited about footwear. Just until recently in fact. I’ve finally come to realize that I’m worth a great pair of shoes, and that it’s okay to call attention to my feet. I now see my soles for what they can be: glorious exclamation points at the end of an equally fabulous outfit. Even the sentence itself. I can think about shoes, because I am happy; and when I’m happy, I’m creative; and when I’m creative, I write.

If I had patience, I might scrapbook instead. If I had talent, I might paint. If I had mettle, I might sing, or let an instrument consume me. But, because I have none of those things, I expose myself through the written word at the same time as I let it veil me. I will know I’m in trouble if the flats return, or if there is silence on this page, because then other more weighty things must be on my mind. In the meantime, I’m happy to shoe shop.