Shoes. I was never much of a shoes girl. I rambled happily through my twenties wearing black cotton tai chi shoes, vintage forties pumps, and multi-colored leather boots. Shoe lust conversations about Jimmy Choos and Renata left me in the dark. The closest I came to a shoe obsession was my wistful memory of a beautiful pair of Kork-Ease sandals that I had wanted as a girl. Over time the memory of those sandals got filed away somewhere in my mind, buried beneath the navy blue suede double-breasted jacket that I left in San Francisco and the body hugging teal dance dress that I never bought but can still see hanging in the window of Karen & Co.
So imagine my surprise when Kork-Ease sandals reemerged onto the fashion scene this spring. Joy. Delight! But wait…they are $175! I couldn’t spend that much money on a pair of sandals could I? Prudence versus Desire. What to do? I decide to wait a month. If I really wanted those sandals after spending a month looking at other, cheaper sandals, if this truly wasn’t just some passing shoe fancy, well, then I would do what mom couldn’t do.
I looked. I wavered. But I didn’t buy any other sandals. At the end of my month, Sundance Catalog had a sale — 10% off everything. My Kork-Ease sandals were now $158. This must be a sign from God. I whipped out my credit card.
My sandals arrived. Chocolaty brown with 3-inch platforms. Beautiful. Comfortable. Sturdy. This is a story with a happy ending. I am completely in love with my shoes. I have always been self-conscious about being tall, even though I am only 5′8, but wearing my Kork-Ease sandals I feel like “yeah, I’m tall — and I like it.” I wear my sandals all the time, glancing at them admiringly throughout the day.
So is that the surprise? I like my shoes? Not exactly. Two days after my Kork-Ease sandals arrived in the mail, I dropped by Target to get some contact lens solution. Trolling through the shoes aisle I was stopped short. Were those Kork-Ease knockoffs? Could it be? And for only $9? I started laughing. At $9 they looked pretty good. I tried them on and they were relatively comfortable. Just imagine if I had seen these before I had bought my Kork-Ease sandals! I shivered at the thought. No doubt I would have done the sensible thing and bought these instead. With that in mind I bought the knockoffs too. Why? I seldom wear them because while the knockoffs are “fine” the real ones are “just right.” I bought them because it was as if owning the knockoffs AND the real thing opened up a truth that I needed to acknowledge about my childhood, my future, and myself. Growing up my shoes never fit right; they were never what I wanted. But they were the shoes that my family could afford to buy. The cheap shoes were good enough back then. More than good enough, they were all right. Even though I didn’t understand that at the time. Moreover, the cheap shoes are still all right. But at the same time, every now and then it is lovely to get a bit more than good enough, to get exactly what you want, and surprise, to find out that it is just as wonderful as you imagined.
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Garden variety North American Nomad. Born in the Midwest; lived and worked on the West Coast and abroad; studied in the South. Recently spotted putting down roots in New England.