介绍:
Are they old shoes, or memories waiting to be unearthed?
By Barbara Robertson
My grandmother’s shoes were black with four eyelets and a one-inch stacked leather heel. Orthopedic shoes for old, bone tired feet – these were my Granny B’s shoes. She detested buying them, wore them begrudgingly and looked pained every time she put them on over her thick, brown-pressure stockings. At day’s end, she would undo the laces and pry her swollen feet and legs out of both shoes and stockings, relieved to have both out of her sight.
“Barbara” she would sigh, rolling her feet on a yellow tin of Habitant pea soup, “take care of your feet, you need them, even at my age. Make sure your shoes fit. Don’t wear high heels unless the occasion calls for it, otherwise, you will be like me. Bunions and corns, wishing these feet didn’t need to take you anywhere and some mornings wishing they still could.” I would nod, only partly listening and usually out of obligation. We would be in the living room: she in the La-Z-Boy with the orange flower pattern, and I, perched on the gold sofa under the front window, usually with my nose in a book. I was 17, she was 89.
Marilyn Monroe was right when she said that with the right shoes, you can conquer the world.
…
Shoes are memories, advice and often polished with care and worn with pride. Shoes are fashionable, practical and powerful. Some shoes are too dear to abandon, others are too loud to keep.
