Issue #36

Paring Down Pairings

One Good Pair

I’m packing a carry-on suitcase for a 10-day trip, and Rick Steves, the famously chill travel guru, is judging my shoe choices. After much deliberation I’ve decided on a pair of sneakers, water shoes, a daytime sandal and a nighttime flat.

“One pair of good walking shoes is all you need,” Rick says. “Travel light, travel smart.” He himself is wearing black ECCO lace-ups, sensible and homely.

For anyone who isn’t a travel guru or an old-timey nun, the idea of One Good Pair of Shoes for ten days is as challenging as One Good Plant would be for an avid gardener. Part of the problem is that in our era of shoe specialization, One Good Pair doesn’t get you through a single day. We need comfort shoes (sneakers, loafers, slip-ons, boat shoes, Crocs), fashion shoes (heels, boots, pumps, flats), outdoor shoes (rain boots, snow boots, garden clogs, flip-flops), and athletic shoes tailored to exercise preferences (hiking boots, biking cleats, walking, running, tennis, golf, bowling, and/or basketball shoes). Like Prufrock wondering if he dare wear his trousers rolled, we wonder if we can use running shoes for all our walking needs, or—pass the smelling salts!— walking shoes for running!

I put the daytime sandals back in the closet.

Here’s the thing, Rick: I want to pack lightly, and I want to pack smart, that is, pack shoes that save me from blisters, plantar fasciitis, sore ankles and a back blowout. But I don’t want to look like someone whose worries are orthopedic. I want to look à la mode, not oh-my-toes! I follow trends same as anybody. Pointy, rounded, squared toes? Chunky, platform, stiletto, block, wedge heels? Ankle boots or knee-highs? Mary Janes! Wait, Mary Janes are out! Black sneakers! White sneakers! Nope, for this season—BROWN!

Who could have imagined I’d be lusting for brown sneakers.

It used to be simpler. Growing up we had one pair of tennis shoes for outdoor play, basketball, softball and track, a pair of flip-flops for summer, patent leathers for church, and saddle shoes for school. We wore each pair till our toes were smushed, fashion be damned. If a girl were foolish enough to choose a yellow patent leather church shoe that matched her yellow Easter dress, she was stuck with that shoe for Christmas too, no matter that her dress was red.

Remember the Imelda Marcos jokes? It was a mere forty years ago that the Philippine first lady earned the disgust of the entire world after she fled her impoverished country and left behind over 800 pairs of shoes. One person owning so many shoes was shocking. Nowadays music producer DJ Khalid boasts of his 10,000 pairs of sneakers. And Kylie Jenner feels no shame in revealing her shoe collection is worth a million dollars. We hold these people up as influencers, not as avatars of avarice. Celebrities with shoe closets the size of rural libraries make us feel our own overfull shoe stockpiles are not only normal but probably not meeting our fashion needs.

As an antidote to such shoe lust, I offer a story about the One Good Pair of Shoes That Wasn’t.

A few years ago I was working the sign-in desk at a food pantry in Kauai. The pantry also distributed clothes and shoes, and shoes in particular were always in low stock and high demand. A man came up and asked for size 11 or 12, and when I went to check for him, I discovered there was only one pair of 11’s on the men’s rack, and that pair, for some strange reason, was made up of two left shoes. We had a laugh, and the man passed on the offer.

Later that day, another man came limping in and asked for the same size. I told him the same thing—we only had one pair and it was a pair of two left shoes.

“That’s ok,” he said. “That’s what I got.”

I looked under the table to see what he meant. On his left foot he wore a sandal that barely contained his red and swollen foot. On his right he wore a floppy-soled sneaker intended for a left foot.

“I got a lot of issues,” he told me. He was referring to the pain in his feet—he walked like he was dragging cinder blocks—but he just as well could have been referring to his mental state, his living conditions, his health.

I gave him the two left shoes. We did not have a laugh.

When he trudged away, his toes both pointing right, I had one thought and it does not flatter me. I was so grateful not to be him. So grateful to not be in his shoes, in his uncomfortable, improperly-paired shoes.

And so I look at my three pairs of travel shoes and I think I have wasted too much time worrying about them. I have more than one good pair of shoes. There are a billion people in the world who don’t own any at all. I have shoes for my right foot and for my left foot. I have shoes that don’t have holes in them, I have shoes with intact soles, I have shoes with internal support and padding.

I have shoes I bought myself and did not have to beg for.

One more story about shoes.

My friend Helaine, aged 99, wears the same one or two pair of shoes every time I see her. She choses her shoes with care, comfort being the primary concern. She told me once that her father had a saying she took to heart her whole life: “Always have a good mattress and good shoes. You get up and you can go to work because you’ve rested well, and your feet don’t hurt.”

I think Rick Steves would appreciate that.

*

One Good Word

As long as we’re in the mode of counting our blessings, let’s turn to my favorite poet, Jane Kenyon, for the last word.

(Important to know that Kenyon was no Pollyanna. She suffered debilitating depression on and off for many years and died at age 47 of leukemia. And yet she had a rich life, a beautiful life, a deep connection to nature, and an enduring marriage to poet Donald Hall.)

Otherwise
by Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

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