Feet Like Boats
"It’s just that they’re so wide," my dad says.
"But they aren’t abnormally wide," I explain. "I’ve seen the little shoe-sizer gadget, and her feet are a normal width."
"Well, they look wide. They look like big old boats," he says. I’m asking him about his distaste for my mom’s feet. I know that it’s largely because of him that she has this hangup about her feet. My dad is not known for his tact when it comes to women’s body images. He is notorious for pointing out zits, weight gain, bad haircuts (defined as anything shorter than mid-back), and unflattering clothes for the women in his life.
My parents are long ago divorced, so what he thinks of her feet isn’t really very important, except that I think my feet are shaped like hers, and I have a hard time finding shoes that are shaped correctly, so I’m trying to narrow down what it is about her feet that makes them different from other people’s (haha, get it. "narrow down"). The descriptor "big old boats" doesn’t help me much.
Later, I am telling Preston about the conversation. "Well, your feet are shaped a little different than most people’s," he says.
"They are? How? Show me."
"Well, it’s not so much when you hold them up in the air like that. It’s more when you are standing on them. They are really square in the front, where most people’s feet curve down towards the little toe."
Tags: feet, self-portrait challenge, imperfections
October 13th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Yes, my feet are this way too. Hence I am confined to wearing birks most of the time and sometimes it looks like I am wearing boat covers on my feet. Let me know when you find a solution.
October 15th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
The only solution I’ve come up with is to go barefoot as often as possible and post pictures of my feet in my blog.
October 15th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Which is quite confusing to people since your tracks appear to be of feet with only four toes.
October 16th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Exactly who are these people who are confused? But yes, I hadn’t really noticed that until I started hanging out at the beach this year. My little toe curls in such a way that it registers directly below my 4th toe, rather than beside it. If Search and Rescue was ever looking for me, and I was barefoot, I’d be easy to track. Also, if I have 5 on my front feet and only four on the back feet, I think that makes me a rodent, except in reverse (the have 4 in front and 5 on the rear). An anti-rodent.
October 20th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
These confused people are all the people on my committee of course, you anti-rodent. The sister on my committee is especially concerned, she did not know she is actually a sister to an anti-rodent. Changes everything.
October 26th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
Ha ha ha! Big old boats. Actually, I remember when we had some hippy make a pair of sandals for me and your dad held one up and said, “If we’re ever broke, we can go on the road and you can win us some money playing ping-pong with these things”. That’s because when I traced around my foot, the resulting sandal was very narrow at the heel with a big wide toe area (and also because I was very good at ping pong). My toes are shaped like yours for sure. Preston said it exactly right - most people’s feet angle down from the big toe to the little toe - ours don’t. And they don’t make shoes for feet shaped like ours!