In my shoes

I promise that this isn't going to be a morality tale about learning the trials of others' lives...it's really literally about shoes and how...well, I'll come to that later.

I've been walking a lot lately, since an arthritis study I'm participating in gave me this basic fitbit to keep track of my "activity" each day.  

It isn't the easiest contraption to wear and keep charged, but, though it insists on showing me data I really don't need to know...like the number of times I get up from a chair each hour...it has been an admittedly helpful way to think about moving my feet.  And since spring has sprung fully around here, the longer days mean I've more chances...and more incentive...to get out and hit the ground more often.

Spring is our most enlivening season.  Each day a new blossom; each day a new urge to walk among them.  The sun changes the shape of shadows, the moon stays in the morning sky a bit longer.  Last week the redbuds burst out; this week the azaleas take their turn.

Bouquets of all sorts burst out from passing yards, and tulips, thanks to friends' gifts, appear at the door.

But I digress...back to those springier walks, and the shoes I step out in.

Lately, my walks have been a little lumpy.  I thought it was just the unevenness of pebbly or cone-littered roads, but the other day I turned my shoes over to find each sole a little thin...my finger could pass right through.  I sighed.

I like these shoes, which my brother-in-law Jim found for me the last time I visited their favorite shoe store with him and Eileen...they were a brand I wouldn't have thought would take the place of the more orthopaedically supported kind I usually go for, but they have kept me comfortable company for the year and a half (or more, now?) that I've had them.

Since time and tides don't permit me a trip west, I took myself to the huge shoe warehouse in the mall here, looking to replace the ones I'd worn to the bone.

I hate shopping.  Thinking about a drive to a store sets me frowning (grocery and art  stores excepted).   There are too many choices, too many unhappily unsuited things before me.  More often than not, I walk out empty-handed, exhausted and confused with the uselessness of it.  My only gain is that, having parked in the spot farthest from the store, and doggedly plowing through the crammed aisles inside, I can rack up eight or nine hundred new steps on my day's tally.  Still, it's not the most charming of vistas to enjoy stepping into.

Necessity, however, dictated.  At least, I thought, I know what I am looking for, so I  deliberately wore my holey shoes to be sure I found the right thing.

But alas...like most things you favor, this style no longer existed.  Newer designs, with gel cutouts and laces that tangled when you looked at them, had edged my good practical ones out.  Sizes, too, seemed off...I measured my old shoes to the new ones which claimed to be 7.5s and found them off by a quarter-inch.  To cut a long (frustrating) shop short, I chose a pair of purple laced sneakers I thought would work, leaving behind under my try-on bench eight boxes of pairs that didn't.

Once home, however, walking around the rug, I noticed that these new ones ("Shoes Made for Women", they cackled on the box top) didn't give me much top support.  I sighed again.  Back to the store.  In the rain.

This time, only five boxes aside, I made do with the ones above...a half-size bigger to allow for an insert and heavier socks, should they last through next winter.  This time I walked up and down the aisles in them for at least a quarter hour until I was sure.  In each aisle I passed heels higher than the stand they stood on and women trying them on for spring wardrobes.  It's entertainment, of a sort, I guess.

Last evening with my friend Laurie, I, newly shod and with a springier step, headed out to the arboretum to check out the new blooms.  A pair of gel pads helped take my mind off my feet and onto the Spanish bluebells, cherry blossoms, tiny hyacinths and snowdrops...a fine evening's walk indeed.

At bedtime, I charted my steps with a smile (9,764) and slept happily.

I'm sorry there's no moral to this story...just a spring complaint and a confection of flowers.  Forgive me.