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Stacy was a vision of fabulosity. Whether dressed up or down, the woman had inimitable style and imagination.
Her shoes, however, were another matter.
They were always great shoes. Sleek, cute, sexy. Not cheap. But being a lifelong foot man, I could see that Stacy's feet--stuffed into too-tight pumps one day, hanging off the front, back or sides of a beautiful sandal of irreconcilable design the next--were miserable.
Watching her poorly camouflaged pained walk made me consider humankind's connection to its shoes as metaphor for our lives. Maybe Stacy's volatile relationship with her shoes suggested more was hurting than just her feet.
Our association with shoes, after all, begins with our parents. Our guardians are responsible for both the early development of our emotional well-being and what we put on our feet. Why wouldn't the choice and condition of shoes we wear be an indication of our emotional DNA?
I remember my childhood ritual of new shoes. With Mama looking on, the salesman would measure my feet, disappear into the back room and return with two or three boxes. Names like Stride Rite and Buster Brown come to mind. New shoes weren't an event.
Yet I also recall an entire bitter Oklahoma winter of walking to Douglass High and back in black loafers with holes in the soles. It would take the entire school day for my socks to dry in my shoes--just in time for me to walk back home.
Instinctively my body retaliated, slowly forming callouses on the balls of my feet. My spirit developed a few callouses, to a child truly loved and looked after can still suffer the muted neglect that manifests itself in worn old shoes.
I don't think my parents were purposely slow about getting me new shoes. But what does it say that I was afraid to tell them I needed new ones? Or that I didn't investigate the concept of an after-school job and buy my own shoes?
When I first interviewed entertainer Barry White, in 1974, he mentioned growing up so poor that he used to end his prayers with, "...And God, please don't let my feet grow anymore this year."
I chuckled when he said this, maybe because, sitting in his spacious Sunset Blvd. office, obsessively decorated in baby blue and overlooking Hollywood, we seemed a million miles away from the straitened circumstances of White's South Central L.A. youth.
However, in retrospect, apparently something was going on in The Maestro's life that a closet full of good shoes could not soothe; something the physically formidable White, who constantly struggled with his weight, attempted to sate with food.
Maybe I laughed at what White said precisely because I didn't find anything funny about it at all.
In any case, I believe putting our feet into the wrong shoe is just another tiny way we punish and renounce ourselves.
Ever seen someone in too-tight shoes? How does delusion win over physical pain? Or over the reality that we have stuffed ourselves into the wrong job or the wrong relationship?
This is no way to walk through life, no matter the shoe.
Of course, you might wear great shoes but smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. Everyone's doo-doo owns its unique revelation.
For years now, I've been in charge of my own shoes. Good shoes. My favorite, however, isn't a shoe at all, but black Jack Purcells. I'm wondering if certain callouses ever fade.
Stacy might know. The last time I saw her, almost a year ago, her life had taken a dramatic sway.
She had an exciting new VP position. Mended fences with her stepfather. Most important, Stacy found the courage to walk out of a 13 year marriage of convenience. She'd gained about five firm pounds that looked damn good on her womanly frame.
And wouldn't you know it, Stacy's got a new walk. I witnessed it as she moved across the Coffee Bean parking lot. It was the kind of comfortable, assured stride that comes with finally being brave enough to slide your precious dogs into slippers that fit.
Steven Ivory's book, FOOL IN LOVE (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster) is in stores now or at Amazon.com (www.Amazon.com) Respond to him via STEVRIVORY@AOL.COM or MYfeedback@eurweb.com