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....
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