feet

My father blessed me with difficult feet. A former lover dubbed them ugly, but I think she exaggerated. They’re broad beyond measure, triple E, but not ugly from where I stand. I quite like them. As a footballer I thought them effective: they kicked straight and long. On the netball court my feet ran others off their feet.

Feet are not a problem, but shoes are. When my father finds shoes that fit, no matter how unfashionable, he buys a few pairs. I cannot find shoes to fit my width. Getting the width right means tripping over my toes. I burst shoes, split them at the side-seams, so I rarely buy them.

Whatever my feet are—wide, ugly, effective—they perspire profusely. In summer I go barefoot or slop round in thongs. If I wear sandals, my feet soon slosh around in pools of sweat. They don’t like socks even in the depths of winter. Unless I’m sitting still, there toast.

Wearing shoes makes me hot. I take mine off in trains, planes and automobiles. I store them under seats in the cinema. In more formal situations I slip them off under tables at meetings, under my desk at work. I trot around the office, and I’ve presented PDs for large audiences, in socks.

When I must don socks, I wear different colours and have favourite combinations—blue and yellow, orange and green. I have pastels and fluoros, but never mix them. In the street people’s gaze drifts below my knees. They look either bemused or amused. Boring people go straight for the ‘got up in the dark’ cliché. Many simply say, “Love the socks.”

Some people are into foot sex, toe sucking, toes in certain orifices or clenched around protruding body parts. I can’t see feet as sexy. Practical, yes. Attractive, maybe. But not sexy.

I just like feet for what they are.

Feet bear our weight, all of it. Feet take us places; without them our journey is limited. Feet measure how far we’ve come and how far we have to go. And six of them, one fathom, will be the measure of us when we end our time on the earth.

Rock on.