Stories of Shoes

and indecision...

My son doesn’t wear school shoes for school. They are black, but they aren’t the “sensible” leather Clarks branded ones I wanted him to wear.

They are “cool” Nike trainers from the epic Nike shop on Oxford Street in London.

I apologised at the start of term for his shoes. That was back in September. He still wears them everyday and the “proper” shoes have stayed firmly in their box wrapped in white tissue paper. Someone else might wear them.

Until last year, L wore the barefoot shoes his Dad wanted him to wear. His feet spread out delightfully. Now they cling on for dear life.

I rub his feet sometimes and tell him he’s safe to put his whole soles on the ground, all of his toes. The same way he did when his foot fit inside the palm of my hand.

Today, the instructions in an email ahead of an exciting school trip were to wear walking boots or wellies.

He doesn’t have walking boots so wellies felt easier except he said;

Mum, Mr W said absolutely no wellies, they are too slippy.

Ok, I said, but the email from school said walking boots or wellies. We settled on snow boots with his regular shoes in his bag. It’s not snowing.

My shoulders dropped and my heart opened on the drive to school. I forget about judgement in place of peace; I’ve done this for a while now.

I feel torn that we are not the sort of family that own walking boots. My mind swirls with questioning if we “should” be.

Of all the shoes, they just haven’t made it onto the list. Not deemed important enough.

10 years of new sandals, trainers, wellies, snow boots, smart shoes, sand shoes, funeral shoes, wedding shoes, new shoes but never a walking boot.

We couldn’t be late. There was still time although not enough time for the right shoes for this school trip.

I touched the accelerator pedal.

I felt the spaciousness between my black tights on my toes (100 denier) and my Dr Martens boots. A white pair (with the option of yellow laces) I bought on Vinted for £50 ‘hardly worn, only tried on’.

I love them. My husband and my mum don’t, but for me a spacious foot is worth any distaste towards my choice of shoes or people that wore this type before.

My son asks (as he often does) when we can get a dog. Reminds me of what I said years ago before Dave (my husband) got sick, before I knew there would be so many choices and decisions around shoes.

I wonder if it would do us all good to be tied to the walks… I know which shoes I’d wear for those.

When I worked in America, we weren’t allowed to wear open toed shoes. On our ‘days off’, I wore flip flops and my feet smiled gladly in relief. I questioned the rules and found out the boundary was set for health and safety reasons. There was no wriggle room. My feet were in socks and trainers for nine weeks of 30’C mountain heat.

We weren’t allowed to swim in the pool either. There were a lot of rules. There was also a lot of joy, night time drinking and hilarity in being young, free and 21. I went again later in my twenties - I must write about it sometime.

My three year old daughter wears black patent leather shoes with diamonds encrusted in the toes for pre-school. The right one has a picture of Elsa inside and the left Anna (from Frozen). She loves her shoes but yesterday she told me they were too tight and wore second hand bright pink trainers with her red Christmas dress and a bow in her hair. It was Valentines day; her day off uniforms and shoes dictated by all things sensible.

My husband just got a pair of bright orange Crocs.

It surprised me but then again, he often does. The colour orange reminds us both of his late brother and I look up from my laptop in delight as he pops them on for a trial run to take the recycling. He’ll take them on our holidays abroad; great choice for round the pool.

I’ve been thinking a lot of choices and of shoes and of the decisions we make to pigeon hole ourselves, our self expression and our creativity.

I wrote this piece for

Jenna Duxbury

as a celebration of her art and in anticipation of valentines and mothers day here in the UK.

I hope you find time to pop over and support Jenna’s beautiful art work and read mine;

The Mother Art Series : Alone But Together

Sending love for your half term holiday and whatever other things you want to celebrate this month,

Claire

💕

PS - My members and I are working on our three year vision boards next month. Along with a 6month intention we’ll make space for our BIG dreams and our soul whispers. You can upgrade your subscription to join us, click the button below and we’ll see you inside.