Pedis: An Unexpected Love Language
lying on the sofa lamenting the current state of my toes made me realize just how much i love pedicures. if i could only allow myself one indulgence, that’s what i’d pick. every time. the past year’s financial hell mandated that i — very grudgingly, i might add — give them up. fortunately, i was treated to one for gma’s funeral; unfortunately, it was extremely subpar. hyperfocus on the next day’s solemn event made it a non-issue, though now i hate that my most recent experience hardly brought any sense of relief. for the longest i assumed that my infatuation stems from the sensations i get, a sort of stimming or anxiety coping mechanism, or maybe the beautification of something i once loathed. introspection turned out a much deeper, more meaningful origin.
to be honest i used to hate my feet. hate. they’ve never been considered small. and in a society that rewards things that take up little space, it was just another category into which i didn’t fit. by the time i was in middle school i was toeing the line of the famed size six in boys that girls on the precipice of women’s sizes tended to stuff their feet into. my mama wrote the book on buying things with ample room to grow into, so that wasn’t flying in my house at all. and it didn’t help my self-esteem. we rarely had money to afford the styles i wanted, let alone the price difference when sizing up from the kid's section. and all my hand-me-downs came from my older brother and even older great aunt. as a girly girl who yearned to express herself through wardrobe, shit was rough. it was just another thing to be picked on about if i ever happened to end up in the bullies’ crosshairs.
the first time my feet were complimented was in high school. despite many of the Black students being family and/or childhood friends, i’d just moved back to that area, so the black sheep feeling was amplified. i have always marched to the beat of my own drum, even when i didn’t understand the rhythm, so deciding to dress up for school for absolutely no reason wasn’t uncommon. on this day, i wore these amazing heels i was allowed to splurge on for easter. thin black leather strings and four-inch heels. a minimalist thing of beauty they were; one strap across the toes and two long ones to lace around the ankles. GORGEOUS. so as i was walking down the hallway between classes that afternoon, no one paying me much attention because they hardly ever did, The New Guy — the one all the cool kids thought was cool — paused as he headed in the opposite direction, looked at me and said, “You got pretty toes,” then kept moving. WHAAAAT. now while that moment didn’t actually make me like my feet, it definitely boosted my confidence enough to begin wearing sandals in college. and so began my regularly scheduled pedicures.
we weren’t allowed to even think about polish or getting our nails done until we were teens. my mom’s sexual abuse-induced trauma made her obsessive about keeping all things deemed “grown” off limits. it was her way of avoiding wayward eyes, though ironically, that may have drawn the very thing she hoped to avoid. but i digress. anyway, prior to junior prom, my first real experience regarding any type of service to hands and feet was us, the kids, “doing” my gma’s feet. when we heard, “Come do ‘mah feet!” it was understood that we had to either apply rubbing alcohol or lotion to gma from the knee down. it rarely had to be said but was always somehow understood that the youngest able-bodied kid in the house was preferred. gma’s long hours on her feet at the meat plant made this a fairly regular occurrence. if i recall correctly, i often got upset when my younger sibling or cousins were present and therefore did the “doing.” ever the diplomat, gma would thank them when they finished and let me do it over.
as one became more experienced, “doing feet” also came to mean soaking and cleaning. anytime we saw gma with — or were told to get — the basin out of the bathroom, we knew what it was. we’d need a towel, hot water, rubbing alcohol, and the tiny red and silver flip knife she kept in her purse. if you’d proven yourself, you were allowed to boil the water and transport it alllllll the way from the kitchen and into the waiting tepid basin bath. trust was multi-layered; between using the gas stove, transferring water from a hot pan to another container, a spill-free transport, a precise pour, and gauging the proper amount of heated liquid…there were a lot of opportunities to mess up.
man, the anticipation of gma easing her tired feet into the water, praying you got a head nod, or even better, a head-back-closed-eye-exhaled-sigh. at worst, you got a jump scare while holding a bowl/pan/pitcher of boiling water when gma yelped and pulled her toes out of the too-hot bath. the self-imposed pressure of the moment paid off if you were fortunate enough to get gma’s indirect approval.
the ultimate honor was actually cleaning them. after an unofficial apprenticeship of unknown length, i.e., watching the older ones, one was trusted with the lil’ red knife and allowed to scrape the dead skin from her heels and “pick” it from her nail beds. sounds disgusting, but we fought over the task.
although young me didn’t have the words to call it such, it was an honor to do gma’s feet. so we thought it was gross, yes; in the way that kids thought gross stuff was cool at first, but as we got older, it was in the if-it-wasn’t-for-gma-i-definitely-wouldn’t-be-doing-this way. nevertheless, we loved it. it was a chance to have focused time with gma, which, given the size of my family, was extremely rare. it also allowed us the opportunity to do something for her. the woman whose hard work and paltry paycheck kept us going, and together. whose home and land built foundations for many individual branches of the family. even without the full understanding of all that gma was to and did for us, we knew that doing her feet was somehow honorable and honoring.
the last time i got to do that for gma was about a month before her transition. she’d complained about her feet being sore so one afternoon i gathered the materials and started to work while she watched her sappy hallmark movies. i’d gotten too aggressive with an ingrown toenail and caused her some pain. though temporary, it’d hurt me so badly to hurt her. it was over quickly, and gma went out of her way to praise me and the pedi, profusely exclaiming how much better and lighter her feet felt. weeks later, after she passed, i’d have the same reaction and concerns about whether i’d hurt her in the end when she couldn’t communicate her needs to me anymore. despite no longer being here, i honestly believe her spirit shut down my fears in the same loving manner before my anxieties and grief could take root.
over the years, i’ve learned that oftentimes what’s understood doesn’t need to be explained. time and time again, that theme has shown up in my relationship with gma — from her knowing what i need without saying to me meeting her needs sans direction. but the times that Spirit does allow things to connect, to come full circle replete with a whole figurative light bulb moment, i love those. there’s a beauty in knowing, in understanding, even when the words and connections don’t make sense to anyone else.
so yea, i love pedicures because they represent love. respite. care. a bunch of other things, too. but coming to realize that the thing i love to do just for me, just because, is rooted in the woman that loved me most fully…well, that’s one of the sweetest, most meaningful, insignificant gifts i’ve ever received.
