Shoes

I don’t care about shoes. Maybe it’s because shopping in general is a form of torture for me. Maybe it’s because my feet are different sizes. My collection of footwear is small and unexciting, and that’s how I like it.

But I have this pair of sandals. Teva brand, “Tirra” style, neutral color, size eight. There’s a stain where the super glue seeped through when I tried to affix extra Velcro to make them more snug. Next to the stain are some uneven stitches from when I sewed the Velcro on after the glue immediately failed. They’re a bit dirty and scuffed. Too big for my left foot, but what shoe isn’t?

I ordered these sandals on Amazon last summer because a few months before that, I had lazily mentioned that I wanted to see New York City before I died and Jeremy took that whim and ran with it. He planned a whole, delightful—and childless!—trip for us. While he researched airlines and hotels and Tonight Show tickets and Uber and restaurants, I researched walking shoes. My feet had failed me before, so I knew I needed something better than a Payless special to carry me all over Manhattan. I needed some serious arch support.

I also knew that for something this important, I should go into an actual store and try shoes on. But knowing and doing are two very different things for me. Click, click, done.

When a brown box arrived on my porch a few days later, I nervously put the sandals on, awaiting disappointment. Once the straps were tightened I stood up and looked down. They looked like nothing much, but they felt like a hug. A miracle.

So off we went. These were the only shoes I brought, except for those dressier black things that saw me through a couple of Broadway shows. These are the sandals that carried me onto the Staten Island Ferry, that squished their way through Central Park in the rain while everyone else took out ponchos and umbrellas and the two of us just soaked it all in. These are the sandals that walked among the graves at Trinity Church, that took me into that little shop with the heavenly peach gelato in Greenwich Village. These are the sandals I kicked off in satisfaction at the end of every day, feeling at once guilty for leaving my babies home and giddily happy I did.

These are also the shoes I frantically lifted up off the floor in that frenzied moment of deep human connection that can only occur when strangers on a crowded subway are confronted with the world’s largest ride-hitching cockroach.

That five-day wonder of a vacation ended, as vacations do. I’m back in the land of strip malls and minivans and school schedules and bedtimes. But I brought back a few souvenirs: a menu from Katz’s Deli. A square magnet clip that says “The Tour at NBC Studios.” And I’ve still got these shoes.

Now when I’m pushing a squeaky cart through Walmart, I can look down at my sandals and imagine I’m climbing the steps of the New York public library, passing under those great stone archways, and mentally planning how to uproot our lives so I can live the rest of my days within walking distance of this building.

Now when I’m dragging our smelly green garbage can to the curb, I can glance at these sandals and be back in that echoey stairwell, marching with Jeremy up the last eight floors to the top of the Empire State Building, laughing because we’re still young enough to do it, knowing we won’t always be.

Now when I’m stuck in some line that won’t move, I can go back to that dreamlike moment in a sweltering underground subway stop. Sweat drips down my back as a couple of guitar strummers belt out my new favorite version of “Rock Me, Mama.” Men with briefcases look up from their phones, women twirl and laugh in a circle nearby, and my husband stands next to me, smiling. I’m surprised by the unexplainable rush of love I feel for the whole of humanity. My toe taps in time with the beat.

One time I strapped on some sandals and stepped outside of my life for a minute, and now that minute will always be mine. I think I’ll hold onto these old sandals too, because sometimes the memory of a thing can be just as sweet as the thing itself.