If the Shoe Fits

Last weekend, I helped Katie clean out the shoe bins in her closet. Her feet grow so rapidly these days that some pairs don't fit from week to week. We bagged up tennis shoes, soccer cleats, flip-flops, party shoes and cowboy boots, to be given away. Out with the old, and in with the new, I suppose. I wish there weren't quite so many new, though. For example, she owns four pairs of dance shoes - jazz, tap, character, and ballroom. I would have thought we had covered the bases. She came home from dance practice Thursday and said she needed ballet slippers, because her feet aren't gliding during the warm-up.

Size ten ballet slippers. It's almost comical - like she's standing on pink leather skis. I took them out of the bag tonight and looked at her pink slippers, then got out her first pair of ballet shoes. I've saved them, along with her baby shoes. I could fit three of that first pair, end to end, inside the ones she bought today. I remember her first day in Ms. Susan's ballet studio, how she learned to tuck her shoes up inside her leotard when she put on her street shoes - just like a real ballerina, Ms. Susan assured the girls. She danced to "Spoonful of Sugar," that first year, in hot pink and silver costume. It was comedy gold. Now she doesn't care about how she dresses - her dance clothes smell worse that then boys' locker room during football season - but she loves the movement and the musicality involved. My daughter, who is growing so quickly that she's often gawky and awkward, is so graceful and different when she dances. I'd be tempted to save these shoes when she's done with them (hopefully she'll wear them out, rather than outgrow them), but as I said - they smell after a while.

I held those little girl slippers in my hands tonight, and started thinking about how many milestones in my kids' lives could be measured by the shoes I bought. It seems there have been so many occasions and activities that required their own footwear. Katie got her first shoes when we traveled to visit family in the northeast, because it was cold there and shoes helped keep her little feet warm. The next summer she got her first pair of "jelly"sandals - she called them her tap shoes and clomped up and down the halls, listening to the sound of them on the hardwood floors. That second Halloween, she was Dorothy and wore her ruby slippers until they fell apart. Elizabeth got new Bob the Builder shoes to wear on her first day of school. She got her first flip-flops, which resulted in her first busted lip. Kindergarten brought their first soccer cleats. Dress shoes for choir. White shoes for Easter Sunday. Riding boots to take to camp. Cowboy boots for rodeo.

I could line them all up, and they'd circle our block. A parade of where my kids have been, and pointing - toe to toe - to where they are going. These days, Katie still wears mostly shoes that let her do what she likes best - dancing, volleyball, soccer or plain old Sperrys for school. But high heels are starting to creep into the wardrobe. She borrowed mine for a while, but now my shoes are too short for her. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or sad about that. I've certainly proven that a mom can get nostalgic and irrationally weepy over anything, even a smelly pair of soccer cleats.

My own shoes are less exciting. Oh, I had my first high heels days, and those have gone by. Sometimes I think about my grandmother and her shoes - she had about a hundred pairs. At 4'10", she felt it was necessary to wear heels at all times. At 88, she was forced to wear practical shoes, and she said it was the worst thing about growing old she'd found yet. Her feet were gnarled, with bunions and corns. But, oh, how she loved her shoes. In my punk phase, she threw out my black boots more than once, telling me to get something "cute and girlie, so the boys won't be confused." I didn't have the heart to tell her, it wasn't my shoes that the boys were checking out.

These days my shoes are like me - mostly practical, with a really fun pair thrown in here and there. But if I had my way, I'd just go barefoot all the time. Barefoot would be wonderful - no more sore toes, no blisters on my heels, always able to feel the world beneath my toes. But then, if we all went barefoot, I'd have no memory trail of shoes. Now, if Katie's feet would just quit growing....

so how did that happen?

I was driving home this evening, car loaded with grumpy, hungry kids, and I did it again...I just sort of blocked things out for a few minutes, came back to awareness, and had a momentary panic. For about four seconds, I absolutely had no idea where I was or how I got there. Where I was, was driving down a road I drive several times a week. But for just those few seconds, I, well, I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Well, I've never been in Kansas for more than a pass-through, but you get the point. It got my heart pumping for a moment, wondering if I'd turned on a strange road and not noticed somehow. But if I had turned onto an unfamiliar road, ironically, I would have noticed right away. It just goes to show how easy it is to miss the ordinary, the every day, and how scary it is when we realize those things aren't right there in front of us any more.

No, I haven't been drinking, and there is no need to call to have my license suspended. We got home safely and with a minimum of whining (and no wine at all, because I was, afterall, driving). But it all resonated so clearly, because it's exactly what I do on a regular basis. I wake up, I get dressed on autopilot, and I don't do anything wacky like put my bra on the outside of my clothing (not yet...senior moments are rare still), but I don't think about what I'm doing, or where I'm headed. It's all routine. And every great once in a while, I look up and wonder where I am, and how the heck I got here. How did I get to be thirty something? How did I become a mother, and oh, wow...shouldn't someone have made me take a test on that or something? How did I get to where I am in my life?

I remember the major milestones. I remember learning to ride a bike. I remember starting high school. I remember my first car. Going to college. Getting married. I remember the days my kids were born. Those are clear. It's all the stuff in between that's a blur. I look up and wonder, "so how did that happen?" It's amazing to me that the things that most clearly define who I am and where I am at this particular juncture in time are the small things. It's making a bad choice in a minor way, but learning something major from it. It's parenting day after day and not losing my temper (and I need a sign like hazardous work sites with a ____ days since the last explosion warning). It's the jokes with my friends. The hugs from my kids that I take too much for granted. The glasses of wine. The monotony of cleaning my house, and a million other little things that have led me down this road. All the twists and turns are minor, and so familiar to me. I'd notice if something big happened. Say, I won the lottery tomorrow...I'd notice. It would not slip by me. It wouldn't slip by anyone in the near vacinity, because it's hard to ignore a woman screaming and dancing naked in the streets. But...my shoe has a hole in it, and I promise you it won't bother me at all until I step in a puddle...just won't notice until there's something worth noticing.

So, if I'm driving in a daze, thinking about what I need to get done or how mad I am at a coworker, or if I should go for a long walk or skip it but also skip dinner, and I suddenly look up to be derailed by a familiar street missing a sign and am thrown into a panic of "how did I get here," it's perfectly normal and to be expected, right? (And wow...that was a major disaster of a run-on sentence.) It's admirable of me to say I'm going to appreciate the little stuff and take time to really look instead of just seeing...but it's not realistic. We're hardwired to overlook the little stuff, the familiar stuff...there's a reason we call it the big stuff. It's big. It's worth noticing. It's what reminds us of where we've been along the way. All the little road markers are no more than a green blur on the side of the road, as we whiz past, racing toward the next small thing. So, tomorrow when I say, "how the heck did this happen?" Tell me to blame it on the little stuff.