It may not be appropriate to admit this on the ever-so public World Wide Web, but I’ve been having an affair. Granted, it’s not a real affair. It’s an emotional and mental affair. And it’s with footwear, so don’t get too excited.
I teach in Vancouver on Tuesday nights and early Wednesday mornings I stand outside a small boutique waiting for the bus that will take me to the ferry. And for the past several weeks there has been a pair of shoes in the window. Sometimes they are displayed under a skirt and blouse ensemble on the right. Sometimes they are tucked under a pair of fab skinnyleg jeans on the left. But always they are giving me the look. The look that says: “Well, hey there, Sunshine. I’d sure like to meet your feet.”
At first I tried to resist their flirtations. I live on the Island. I spend a lot of time walking a dog in the rain and the mud. I spend a lot of time cleaning a horse’s stall and walking through wet pastures and into dusty arenas. Like Meryl Streep in Bridges of Madison County, I’ve made my lifestyle choice and most of the time I’m happy with it. My closet is filled with running shoes and rubber boots and that’s just how it is.
But when those shoes give me that peekaboo look through the tiny little sliver of open toe, it’s like Clint Eastwood has just showed up at my door. It’s like my entire lifestyle has been a mistake. I should be living in New York (or at least Vancouver) and I should have an entire wardrobe full of clothes that would look just right with a pair of handstitched high heels in a shade of brown that is both classic and totally contemporary.
I’ve tried not looking at them. It doesn’t work. Even when they’re not in the window, they seem to call me from inside the store. I end up standing with my nose pressed against the glass trying to catch a glimpse of them inside the store. People look at me funny.
‘Why don’t you just buy the shoes and be quiet already?’ you might very reasonably ask. Well, I enquired after them and discovered that they cost $600. Dollars. Not pesos.
It seems to me that the day you spend $600 on a pair of shoes is the day you’ve crossed some sort of line. (Unless your name is Barbara Amiel and/or you’re fond of the phrase: “Let them eat cake.” Or you live in New York. According to the Gossip Girls books, most teens in New York would be totally embarrassed to wear shoes that only cost $600.)
But if you live in Nanaimo, British Columbia and have a mortage and other responsibilities, $600 shoes are not an option.
So what is the answer? There is no answer. Sometimes the best affairs are the ones that take place entirely in one’s head. Until the course is finished, I will stand each Wednesday morning as near to the shoes as I can get in a proprietary fashion. I will visualize each of the outfits I own that the shoes look fantastic with (I will have to make up these outfits, as I don’t actually own them). And when the shoes finally sell I will know that our time together was short but it was intense. I may write a story about it, one filled with heartbreak and yearning, called The Shoes of Madison County or Why Don’t I Have Anyplace to Wear These (and Why Can’t I Afford Them Even if I Did.)
If you can guess the pair that are filling my dreams, well, you get nothing except to share the bliss of looking at them and wishing they were yours. Unless you’re one of those lucky bastages who actually trots around in $600 shoes. In which case, please buy some and give them to me when the affair is over.