On shoes and being young

Bringing home a pair of fire engine red sandals the other day from Steve Madden reminded me another shoe shopping trip about a month ago. I was heading out of town on short notice and was in need of a pair of basic walking shoes. I checked a handful of stores without any luck before wandering, with some hesitation, into a chain store known for its comfortable and “therapeutic” women’s shoes. As I entered the store, a nice elderly man with a store nametag held open the door for me. I headed for the displays and had been browsing for a minute when I glanced up and noticed that everyone else in the store—employees and shoppers, every last one of them except me, were senior citizens. I shrugged and went back to shopping but soon started feeling unnerved by the throng of grandmothers quietly browsing around me. Had I missed the sign on the door about a minimum age limit? Now the shoes in front of me appeared in a new light. Heels and sandals that had before looked pleasantly sturdy suddenly seemed aggressively orthopedic. I half expected to see Janet Reno, that tyrant of sartorial practicality, elbowing her way toward the counter and slamming down her AARP card and a pair of oatmeal pumps.

Was I overreacting? Making drama out of something mundane? Well, duh. There are, after all, worse things than discovering one shares the same retail impulses as people over 65. But standing there glancing from the shoes to the customers and back again, I also felt something more personal. I have always had the sense that, though my birth certificate swears I’m only 29, I am at heart going on 80. I’ve always had an affinity for old ladies. I like their circular, patchwork stories, their dreamy complaints and their unexpected ease in their own skin. I like their nostalgia, how they insist on dreaming in reverse when the rest of the world is busy lunging into the future. I think I’m fascinated most by how they risk being lost in that past—something I can deeply relate to, though I can’t say precisely how. In college, my favorite sweater was a grubby white cardigan that resembled nothing so much as a doily crocheted by an angry blind woman and pinched from the back of a Victorian armchair by a dirty-fingered street urchin.

A student once told me that I have “an old soul” and hastened to add that the remark is a compliment. I take it as such. I'm glad my soul is old, but do my shoes have to be?

So there I was in the store, contemplating all this. Meanwhile, shoppers were making their selections, and helpful employees with bifocals and glasses cords were entering and exiting the back room with stacks of shoeboxes. Then the little bell jingled to signal that more customers were entering. The nice greeter straightened up a bit and held open the door for two new arrivals: a pair of wrinkled nuns in their habits, headed straight for the walking shoes.