Get Your Shoes out of My Face
Last weekend, I was making the long drive back from Kansas City with my mother and brother, and something truly weird occurred. In a playful argument between my brother and me, I stuck my feet from the back seat to the front of the car into his face (childish, I know). While this situation was already strange enough, it got more unsettling as my brother started untying my shoe to take it off. For some reason, this made me extremely uncomfortable. Immediately, I retracted my feet as quickly as if he had dropped a small, but very venomous snake into my boot. My brother commented matter of factly, “The fastest way to get someone’s feet out of your face is to untie their shoes.” Why didn’t I just let him take my shoes off and then continue making him uncomfortable with my now freed feet? This was the event that moved me to think about our attachment to our shoes and how we associate them with being human.
Shoes show status. What we are wearing on our feet can communicate who we are as people and a quality pair of dress shoes can show that you are on your way to conduct serious business. On the other hand, a pair of Doc Martens can show that you are into alternative rock, drink at specialty coffee shops, and would get a nose ring if your father wasn’t “so opposed” to it. Another example is my friend Benjamin’s shoes. While they are casual, if you ask about them you will get a response about how he got them for 60 dollars but they are worth 140 at retail. He conveys that he wears expensive shoes but is savvy enough to get them for a low price. This was the equivalent of bragging about getting you luxury car for a ludicrously low price. However, you don’t take your luxury car with you to every place you step foot in (pardon the pun).
Shoes Communicate where you’ve been. A new pair of cowboy boots may communicate that you have just purchased them. However, it is more likely that you have never seen a cow in your life, but really like the idea of riding a horse in the rough, unexplored west of the past. Well, minus the chafing. A well-worn pair on the other hand shows that you most likely work hard driving a combine harvester or rounding up cattle, something to do with agriculture.
As humans, we need shoes to protect our feet on a day-to-day basis. They provide a barrier between our feet and the outside world. To have a well fitting pair of shoes is to have a little more protection than one would otherwise have against the harshness of the outside world. To have an ill fitting pair of shoes is to have a nagging and infuriating sensation that you must endure no matter how much you despise it. It’s as if the worst incarnations of your mother were cruelly woven into the soles of your shoes. No other piece of clothing has such a potential to make our lives better, or annoyingly worse.
Most importantly, shoes communicate our humanity. For me at least, one of the most powerful photos to communicate the gravity of the holocaust are the buckets of shoes that were taken from the victims of these atrocities.
When looking at these photos, we realize that each pair represents a soul erased. No other piece of clothing, I would contend, is so tailored to represent humanity. Not everyone wears a suit, or a T-shirt, on an everyday basis, but we all wear shoes.
Whether those shoes are Nike, Clark’s, or whatever other brands you would like to insert here, they have meaning. The next time I see a snapshot of just someone’s feet surrounded by leather, I’ll know that I am connecting with them as a person and that it’s not just a random pair of sneakers.
