Heart and soles

The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering

and a work of art.   — Leonardo da Vinci

Thinking about this column, I was tempted to call it just “Feet” but, because I’m addicted to shameless punnery, I ended up with the above. Bad, so bad–it doesn’t fit with da Vinci’s exalted quote, and besides, feet are a  serious business.  Anyway, the idea for this piece came from two sources: my eight-year-old grandson, Marco, and his morbid fascination with the fact that, at least before they put the “barricade” up, people at Sunset Beach would extend their feet nearly into the road while they sipped their cocktails!  

That their toes could’ve been run over was such a delightfully grisly thought, he suggested that I put in in my column.  Then, at a lovely Hill of Beans cast party, one of my new friends, Sharon, said that she had watched me “arranging my toes” in the peep-toed sling-backs that were part of my costume so that I could manage my scenes without limping (and/or screaming).  She suggested that “feet” would certainly make a sole-full subject for a column.  Toes and the feet they rode in on?  Sole-full, indeed.

I love my feet—for enduring my hatred and still managing to serve me so courageously all these years.  According to prevailing criteria, they’re ugly.  I’ve had bunions as long as I can remember.  I vividly recall getting school shoes every September, and the shoe store man, perched on his odd little slide-stool, clutching his professional metal foot-measurer, shaking his head sadly at my seven-year-old foot.  “”She’s very young to have bunions.”  Indeed.  Boney feet and bunions had no place in that 1950’s world where Cinderella grabbed the brass ring, not to mention the prince, pretty much because her tiny feet not only fit into those tiny slippers but were pretty enough to withstand scrutiny through that transparent glass.  A glass shoe?  Please.  If there were ever a metaphor for women being trained to suffer for beauty, that’s it.  In fact, in a display of masochistic irony, many of us seem to believe that feet  are just an excuse for our buying the very shoes that will “kill” them.

I take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in my ambivalent relationship with my feet. A few years ago, the Huffington Post ran a fascinating piece by Jamie Feldman entitled These Honest Images Show How Women Really Feel About Their Feet.  Not only do the ladies express everything from adoration to abomination regarding their “tootsies,” but provide portraits of them, to boot, so to speak (www.huffingtonpost.co.uk). 

Men don’t seem as self-conscious as women about the physical appearance of their “dogs,” but, happily, they suffer, too.  According to information on www.northtexasfootandankle.com, men tend to experience in-grown toenails, Athlete’s Foot, Plantar Faciitis (heel and sole pain), and gout more often than women who themselves are more frequently challenged by bunions, hammer toes and even the knee problems that some doctors suggest are the result of wearing those “killer shoes” I alluded to. 

Science tells us that, indeed, there are marked structural differences between the male and the female foot—ah, vive la difference!

As for me, over time my feet have been plagued by corns, callouses and a toenail disorder which delicacy prevents my mentioning except to say it rhymes with “amung us.”  A decade ago, my oddly attenuated (¼” longer than the big ones) “index” toes, which my mother had assured me were a sign of aristocracy, began, each of them, to draw up into a very convincing facsimile  of, yup, a hammer toe. 

If  wearing shoes, except for sneakers, had always been somewhat problematic, it now became almost impossible—I coined the term “Toelio” to describe the condition.  Every shoe hurt except sandals, but then you could see my toes—and, sadly, they looked like they might have been run-over in front of Sunset Beach. 

I became so desperate, I actually went to a foot surgeon who’d been recommended by a fellow-sufferer from work.  Rather than the months-long recovery period for traditional foot surgery, I was able to walk out after the procedure and drive home. 

Within six weeks, my feet began to look, well, nice—almost “mani-pedi” nice—but now it’s been several years and, like a podiatric version of “Flowers for Algernon,” my feet have reverted somewhat—still improved, but, da Vinci notwithstanding, not exactly “works of art.”

But, like I said, I love my feet—they’re honest, reliable, hard-working, and they’ve never pretended to be hands.  They’ve had their issues, yes, but they’ve also walked me, whirled me, skipped, skated, danced and dragged me through the past three quarters of a century of living and they’re still at it.  Works of heart, maybe.  Heart and soles.