The Comfort of Buying Shoes

If you don’t like the looks of your current body you can at least buy shoes. I try to buy shoes that look like they are either from the past or the future. I bought navy blue t-straps with a small heel that look like they are from somewhere between 1912 and 1926, which is my favorite period for fashion. I also bought some green patent leather wedge espadrilles with canvas linen bows that look like they are from a year or two from now.

The first day I wore my new green shoes a stylish woman waiting on a bench for brunch at the ashram vegetarian restaurant said, “Those shoes are fabulous!” and I said, “Mine?” And then a woman vendor at the flea market who was selling wonderful tiny plastic baby dolls with elastic strings on their arms and gold-plated bar pins engraved with the name Edna and other treasures said, “I love your shoes.”

It was deeply satisfying.

It is comforting to buy shoes, but not as comforting as planting seeds in the ground and then harvesting them a few months later, or mentoring a child from the “inner city.”