Walk A Mile

My daughter feels things very deeply.

She's a vibrant character who laughs with her body and cries from deep within her heart. Her tantrums, while often overwhelming and annoying, are truly a remarkable display of a young person's ability to own and voice her opinions. She's agreeable and easy to reassure, but before calming down and cooperating with you, you must first listen to her demands and feelings on the matter at hand.

Now, we've been together long enough for me to understand what triggers her displays of intense emotions. She has numerous opinions on the voices you use while reading her books. She is incredibly scared of our seven pound dog. She adamantly insists that she get to buckle herself in her car seat. And she is very particular about which dolls and stuffed animals are with her when she goes to bed. But remarkably, her biggest hot button issue is shoes.

In many ways, my child cares more about shoes than anything else.

Every morning she wakes up with a declaration of what pair she wants to wear that day. Often, the type of shoes (Keen sandals) don't correspond well with the weather (ice storm). Or, what I intend for her to wear (track suit) won't go with the shoes she's insisting upon (cowboy boots). We spend much of our mornings together arguing over shoes. The hardest days are those in which we can only find one shoe of a pair she's not leaving the house without.

Her obsession with shoes isn't limited to just those of her own. She's often walking around the house in either her father's house shoes or my high heels. When her friends come to play she convinces them to trade shoes. And most days when I pick her up from school, she's wearing a classmate's shoes and much time is spent trying to convince her to give them back.

I like to think this is a phase. That my child will one day care about issues bigger than foot wear. That she'll march for civil rights, or immerse herself in a challenging career, or perhaps even try to save a few whales. I try to ignore the fact that a shoe fetish seems like such a gender-specific cliche. I try not to worry that shoes are a terribly vain and shallow item about which to care deeply. And I hope that one day she and I will argue about politics in the morning, rather than footwear.

But I know better.

She can't help it.

It's in her genes.

Last month my mother underwent foot surgery to correct for a genetic (and remarkably unsexy) malformation known most commonly as a bunion. When my mother would tell others she was having this surgery, their faces would twist in pain as they recounted the story of a relative, or a friend they knew, who had that same surgery and how it was extremely painful and very hard to recover from and so not worth it.

But my mother had her reasons for wanting this surgery. Shoes, mostly. My mother's closet looks more like a shoe department, with various colors and numerous styles twinkling beautifully on display. And like a department store, even more pairs are shoved in boxes and kept in the back. My child thinks of my mother's closet as greater than any playground on earth.

Over the years my mother has found it difficult and painful to wear some of her lovelier shoes. And her purchases recently have had to accommodate the protruding bone in her foot, which has limited her sartorial ambitions. So, despite hearing all the horror stories surrounding this surgery, and despite knowing how long the recovery would be, my mother had her sights set on a new mountain of shoes--strappy, pointy and tight.

While my mother's mind was on summer sandals, she forgot to consider the boredom that comes with being told you have to sit on your ass for six weeks. Or the humiliation of needing your loved ones to help you pee. Which means the next shoe my mother is anticipating is a walking boot. This post-operative shoe will allow her to walk around the house, get up and down the stairs and get to the bathroom by herself, while still allowing her foot to heal. And this boot is what will lead to the pair of rhinestone-covered pumps my mother has been dreaming about since she was wheeled into the operating room.

And when it comes to massive surgeries, a pair of shoes is as good an excuse as any to motivate the healing process.

When I was younger, a couple of months before my 16th birthday, I had a major hip surgery to correct for some injuries I sustained in a car accident many years earlier. Much like my mother's surgery, mine was necessary due to pain and limitations. And also like my mother's surgery, I had my own shoe-related visions: I wanted to be able to tie them. Due to the nature of my injuries, I was unable to bend down in a way that would allow me to tie my own shoes. So I spent numerous years forced to wear slip ons. This was the worst thing that could possibly happen to an adolescent in a decade when Doc Martens reigned.

Like my mother's surgery, I was told to sit still for six weeks while my body healed. I was relegated to my father's lumpy recliner and a portable potty chair my parents had set up in front of our bookshelves. That was the summer I formed the irreversible habit of reading while on the toilet.

So for six weeks I just sat there. I read nearly every magazine and book in our house, talked on the phone endlessly, watched the Star Wars trilogy three times and wrote a handful of somber poems. But much of the time I stared at my feet, itching for the moment I could bend down and tie a pair of trendy, 15-pound boots around them.

But eventually the six weeks passed and I was able to stand. Attempt to walk a bit. And over the course of several more months, lots of physical therapy and some awkward stretching exercises, I was able, for the first time in seven years, to lace up my boots.

This was perhaps the most remarkable milestone of my formative years. Passing my driver's test, which I did while wearing my lace up boots, wasn't nearly as life-altering as realizing I could literally wear any type of shoe I wanted. And when you are no longer limited to clogs and flip flops, the world seems pretty much a beautiful swirling pool of limitless possibilities.

I try to keep the memory of my own recovery with me when I call my mother every day to check on her recovery. I can hear the boredom in her voice. She struggles to handle the isolation, but I try to keep her up-to-date on the latest hemlines and weather patterns. I remind her every day that soon, sooner than she thinks, her shoe options will burst wide open. And her vision of rolling around in a pile of sling backs will soon be a reality.

And in the mornings, when I awake to the sound of my child yelling "TOMS!" from her bedroom, I'll try to keep things in perspective. I'll stagger into her room, struggle to find the light switch in her closet, and reach in to touch her many shoes, trying to find her pair of black TOMS. I'll look down at them and sigh a little. I might have planned on her wearing a cute navy and cream outfit that wouldn't really go with black shoes. But before I start to argue with her, convince her another pair would work better, I'll look at her - hair a mess, eyes bright with excitement - and realize what I need to do in the moment:

Tread lightly.