Joy of Feet-- No. 8 Speech

Here's my Speech #8 ( I used visual aids)

When I was growing up on more than one occasion my Grandfather R.—who came from a family of about a dozen kids and who had six kids and multiple grandchildren—would say to whoever was visiting, “When Cyndy was born, she had the longestttttt feet I had ever seen…. I have never seen such llllllllooooooooong feet on a baby."

I loved my Grandfather and I was brought up to not ‘speak back’ to my elders, but I really wanted to say something like, “Put a sock in it, Grandpa” I didn’t get the point of his repeated exclamations over the size of my infant feet.

I grew up feeling very ashamed of my oversized feet. And frustrated. All the really nice shoes were displayed in a size 6…. Or so it seemed…. By the time it got to my size 9-10, all the nice parts of the shoe were out of proportion and looked like they had been designed for Bozo the Clown.

But, really, I came to terms with my feet in my thirties. I suddenly came across other women—lots of them actually—who wore bigger than size 8s. Shoe stores started to have additional racks for bigger sizes. Seemed like the American female actually had a bigger average shoe size than we had been led to believe by all those dainty little shoes that they used as samples.

Then, somewhere in my late 40s I suffered from something called Plantar’s Fasciitis, a painful condition that led to expensive orthotics (that were covered by my work’s health plan). Now I had to look for big shoes with inserts that could be removed so that the orthotic could be placed inside. Not too many pretty or elegant shoes for women with big feet AND orthotics. So I began to settle for sturdy and comfortable.

That is until I went to my son’s wedding in Manila. Here I was with a shimmering satin gown that needed a lovely pair of sandals to set it off. No problem, I thought—is not Manila the home of the mega Shoe Mart malls, the shopping haunt of that maven of multi-shoes herself, Imelda Marcos?

Yes. There are entire shoe ranches in the malls of Manila…. Acres of glorious shoes.

Cheap too.

But imagine my frustration and humiliation to find that Size 8 is a rarely requested shoe size in all of Manila. They have the most professional and courteous clerks I have ever come across in Manila—but it didn’t help. I could sense that they wanted to hide their laughing mouths in disbelief.

There are only two times when my dear and sincere husband’s over-solicitousness has really bugged me. Once was when we were walking through a grave yard of my ancestors final resting places in the Niagara region of Ontario. I had spent a year gathering all the information of who’s who, and was looking forward to a leisurely walk, savoring these dried fruits of the family tree. But there was Ed, running excitedly and helpfully up and down the rows, yelling out, “Here’s one and here’s one and here’s one”.

Well, it was a similar situation in the Manila mall shoe hunt. Acting partly from self-preservation, I am sure (that is, “If Mama not happy, nobody happy), he went off on solo reconniterrings, brandishing a sandal or shoe, and yelling from across the store something along the lines of “this one looks pretty big”.

I did finally find a pair of sandals in some larger size. They pinched across the toes, but if I carefully slipped them off while I sat, I was comfy and my dress hid the fact that I was unshod. As long as I didn’t walk—or put them on—they fit fine.

When we came back I went back to comfy again. What a thrill to find that my little granddaughter, with her mom’s small feet, has fun with the big clunky shoes in the family—real fun. And nobody is going to tell stories about any part of her that was too big, or too little, or stuck out, or whatever…. Or not in my presence they won’t.

And music has even veered away from the nasty Fats Waller’s “Your Feet’s Too Big” theme to a children’s song by Bob Sakayama celebrating big feet and other out-of-proportion body parts.