Although my middle-aged friends have somehow managed to escape the indignities of bunions, calluses, corns, heel spurs, pinched nerves, fallen arches, hammertoes, tendonitis and plantar warts (or maybe they do suffer them but in martyred stoicism, choosing to ignore the screaming pain rather than suffer the greater indignities of Easy Spirit or Aerosoles), I myself am a regular at Mehring’s, a shoe store in Brooklyn, which specializes in solid, supportive shoes (read: orthopedic) for problematic feet. Foreswear stilettos, all ye who enter here! The new companies, like Jenny, Ara, and Munro, have gussied up their shoes for the baby boomer set, added bows and flowers and other such flourishes, and some of them actually look like they could bedeck the windows of any posh shoe store. Since I prefer to walk rather than mince or limp, Mehring’s has become my go-to shop for all my footwear needs—and during one memorable episode, for life lessons as well. As I continuously learn during my journey through life, you never really know where epiphanies may lurk, the unexpected places where “aha” moments can occur and shift your world view in some small way, or perhaps in its entirety.
In this particular case, it was at Mehring’s. So there I was one day, comfortably ensconced in the store, trying on an endless array of shoes (the proprietors are very patient), when I noticed a woman across the room gazing at me steadily. She was close to my age, which was unusual to begin with. One of the things I love about Mehring’s is that usually I’m among the youngest there; I’ve actually been told by the grayer customers, “Oh, you’re such a baby!” Since no one else has called me a baby in a very long time, I’m prone to going there often. (Also, since I’m hard on my shoes, I wear them out quickly and need replacements fast.) This woman, however, was not the typical Mehring’s customer. She was fashionably clad in designer duds (about which I’m not a maven, but they were definitely impressive), her face was impeccably made up, and her hair was elegantly coiffed. A diamond tennis bracelet was wrapped around her wrist, demure diamond studs adorned her ears, and a small diamond pendant glittered at her neck. Incongruously, despite her otherwise updated look, the woman was wearing orthopedic shoes that were even more sensible than mine. What was she doing here? We were the youngest women in the store. I had opted for comfort long ago, but she was decked out in serious fashionista get-up, clearly not the type who would deign to wear Beauti-feel, Teva or Naot. Then I noticed an older woman sitting at her side, shoeboxes piled in stacks on the adjoining chair. Ah, she’s here with her mother, I deduced rather brilliantly.
One mystery solved. But the enigma of why this stylish woman wore Clarks wasn’t. Her gaze remained steady. I began to fidget uncomfortably in my seat, unnerved by her stare, wondering what was wrong. Had my slapdash application of makeup (one black slash under each eye, a dab of gloss on my lips) started to smear in the relentless heat? Had my hair begun to frizz? Was there a coffee stain on my shirt (a common enough occurrence that is an enduring testament to my love of coffee and my tendency to sip it in the car) or an offensive run in my nylons? I surreptitiously pulled out a mirror and checked my face, then glanced down at my hose. Everything seemed to be in order, at least by my standards. I began to feel the heat of her gaze, which I couldn’t quite interpret. I didn’t know her, that was certain, and there was nothing remarkable about my appearance that would have elicited such intense scrutiny. Just how fascinated could anyone be by my $19 Marshall’s top or my $25 Kohl’s skirt? Wait. Maybe that’s why she was staring; she couldn’t countenance my unfashionable look. But…why would she care? Normally, I would not have brooded over such minutiae; I would simply have dismissed her stares as rude and ignored them. But the store was busy that day, and I had neither an iPhone nor a book to divert my attention, both having been left in the car.
Neither, apparently, did the woman. Although she turned intermittently to help her mother and appraise the shoes she had tried on, her gaze kept coming back to me. I, in turn, watched her watching me, and so our eyes were locked.It was my weight that bothered her, I finally concluded after mulling over all the possibilities. She—sleek, toned and remarkably fit—was disgusted by my corpulence. She was probably judging me, assessing just how much pizza, cake, ice cream and French fries had combined over the years to create my rotund figure. Would she believe me if I told her I hadn’t had a French fry in 30 years, that junk food was nonexistent in my home, and that I struggled with a metabolism problem doctors hadn’t been able to solve? What right did she have to make assumptions about me? How dare she? And did she know me as a human being, know anything about my character, personality, intellect? Was it only the shape of a person’s body that deserved applause? I wished it wasn’t so busy in the store. I wanted to pick up my pocketbook and flee, escape the woman’s unblinking censure. The shame of being overweight in a society obsessed with thinness washed over me. I had tried so many diets, gone to so many doctors, and no one believed how little I actually ate.My self-pity turned to blinding rage.
How dare she pass judgment on me like that? I had to restrain myself from jumping up from the seat, crossing the room, and asking her point blank why she was staring. And then she shifted in her chair. Her mother was parading in front of her in a pair of shoes she clearly favored, and the woman wheeled around to survey them. As she did so, her skirt lifted just a drop—and for a split second, just a twinkling of a moment, right before she quickly yanked it back down, the skies opened, the earth moved. A glint of silver, a flash of steel, and the woman’s narrative was suddenly revealed. As deep shame washed over me again, I realized how deeply wrong I had been. She was wearing an artificial leg. Her gaze hadn’t been disdainful or snobbish, as I had believed, but wistful. She had probably been looking at me— the woman in the store closest to her age—with yearning. I had been blessed by G-d with two legs that functioned well, even if my knees were arthritic, my arches were flat and my toes bore corns. What were any of those things compared to an amputated foot? I felt deeply saddened by her situation, and embarrassed by mine. Here I thought she had been making assumptions about me when all along it was I who had been making assumptions about her. How easily I had judged her, and if not for that movement that had lasted only a fraction of a second, I would never have known the truth. The orthopedic shoes—the single discordant note in her elegant appearance—now made sense. I had once read that people wearing prostheses require comfortable shoes that support their “feet” and offer shock absorption.
Clearly, Jimmy Choos or Manola Blahniks wouldn’t deliver. I had erred in another way, too, I soon discovered. From the moment that I first noticed the woman, I had assumed that she was there solely for her mother’s sake. But I was wrong. As Mrs. Mehring entered the room, her arms laden with stacks of shoeboxes, she piled a heap in front of the younger woman, and gave the remainder to me. Then, for the first time, the woman spoke. She flashed a wry grin at me and winked conspiratorially. “Isn’t it great,” she said, “to be able to find a place that sells such comfortable shoes?”