Two Good Feet

If I sit still for long, my feet turn into Klondike bars or frozen turkey patties.  One or the other, maybe a combination of a few frozen-food-section items.  Cold.  They're pretty unusable today; it has been cold and the wind chill has factored the air to colder yet.  Winter is making itself known every day, and my feet are telling me so.  

The Klondike-bar effect doesn't happen when I sit still in hot weather, of course.  No, in hot weather my feet turn into something that looks like a pillow with five little toe buds apiece.   Poor feet, they go from one resented condition to another, just down there trying to do their job, hoping not to be run into door frames, curbs, or into the back of my other leg.  Grace is an intermittently enjoyed attribute in my life.

I remember a biographical show about Ginger Rogers [edited from Grace Kelly] on PBS where she described dancing with Fred Astaire.  They were the quintessential ballroom dancers in the movies.  She always appeared to be floating on a cloud as she danced, smiling like an angel and she never showed strain or fatigue.  It is said that her feet were bleeding from all the torment her shoes gave her as she danced.  I, in comparison, have poor tolerance for any kind of squeeze or pinch from my shoes and become resentful of whoever dreamed up the idea of high heels if they hurt.

In spite of the fact that my feet puff when hot and become graceless blocks when cold, I like my feet a lot.  They're good flippers in the water and have not been prone to disease or disfigurement (mostly due to my very few hours wearing high heels).  But, more than that, my feet are impressively mobile and strong, accommodating slants, angles and rough surfaces that I hardly notice.  Plus, there are ten nails that are fun to polish.

Zillions of people have shoe fetishes, or at least love shoes to distraction.  I don't often notice shoes, and I'm always surprised when people have noticed mine.  I guess I know my feet are without complaint, so I leave them alone. I know there are the select few who feel some sort of urge to walk across beds of hot coals to see if they can keep from feeling them.  Mind over matter, they say.

I don't want to subject my feet to that kind of test.  They're doing fine so far.  If they get cold in this gray weather, it's on me to keep them warm; it's not their fault.  I look for comfortable shoes, avoid stepping on bees and nails, and leave footprints in the sand when the weather is warm enough.

I wrote recently about swimming and trying an open-water swim this year.  A reader replied with an article about a man who lost both arms and legs after being struck by lightning.  He swam the English Channel with prostheses that work like flippers, and made across in a time 10 hours faster than he'd planned.  No legs, no arms, definitely no feet.  I have no idea how he managed, but it proves that will and courage count for almost everything.  Amazing.

Next time I complain about my feet - or legs or arms - I'll think of him and rethink my whining.  As for  now,  I just put up my feet on a pillow and they're doing much better.  Hmmm, might be time for a foot massage, though.