The Shoes (Mother, May I?)

Ours is a family full of snake-feet women. What on most people are feet are on us, long, winding, toe-ended reeds. When Mom took my sister and me shopping for back-to-school shoes, the trips invariably ended up with her shaking her head back and forth and muttering “snake feet” while the saleswoman slid the width-measuring bar ever-inward and subsequently offered the lone pair of shoes that “might fit.”

Mom has the same feet, and her twin sisters too. My aunt Renee has something like a 11.5AA which is more like a pair of skis than feet (love you and your feet, Renee); suffice it to say that it’s hard for her to find shoes.

Despite the fact that it was once hard to find properly fitting shoes, it turns out that high heels and strappy sandals love snake feet, and in the years since those types of shoes replaced Keds, my inner Imelda Marcos has thrived.  

I love ballet and pointed-toe flats, my trusty TOMS –especially my Union Jacks and my map-of-New-Orleans special editions- and my worn in Reefs. I love slides and kitten heels, the occasional svelte wedge, versatile pumps, leather riding boots, impractical suede booties, sherpa-lined slippers and, back to them, towering stilettos.

At its least glam and most practical, a shoe is a protective support. It can help you run, provides arch support, and allows long walks on city streets or a meandering hike in the woods.

Shoes are also accessories, a relatively simple way to gussy up an outfit. I can never figure out how to wear vests or hats, and only after years of practice, have I come to understand scarves. But shoes? Put on a crisp pair of navy shorts, a trim white shirt and some flip-flops or sneakers, and you have a lovely summer uniform. Trade the flops or tennies for a colorful pair of silk-toppedor metallic leather sandals, and sister, you are a different person.

Let’s get back to heels. Oh, the passion I feel for them. A beautiful pair of heels is a magical transport to a different world. The higher the stiletto, the better, IF they’re well-crafted. That’s a big and important if, for ill-fitting heels are a death sentence.

When I shimmy into a dress, I start to feel both princess and festive. Bubbles inside of my core start to rise up, pushing their way excitedly to my surface: something fun is about to happen. Maybe you’ll dance, maybe you’ll clink flutes, maybe you’ll see a marvelous performance, maybe you’ll get kissed under the mistletoe.

When I slip on my heels, however, the maybes become truths. Those things will happen. I will dance the night away at my sister’s wedding, clinking flutes of cheers and Auguris over and over again. I will see my beloved Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet and I will see BC’s hair in an alley behind the theater where I waited like a teenaged-fangirl for him to come out and sign autographs. I do get kissed under the mistletoe and at midnight and all that jazz.

I am no longer a tired, pony-tailed mother unloading the dishwasher or folding laundry for the billionth time. I am a woman, ME, who is gleefully anticipating whatever fanciful moments are to come.

When I sink down later, tired and happy, and I undo the teeny straps that held these glass slippers to my feet, I marvel at the craftsmanship that goes into a good pair of shoes. They’re forms of art, really. Wearable, transportive art. 

The Body/Nanny's (Mother, May I?)

As a young woman, Nanny was the epitome of glam. Willowy but not thin- you know what I mean? She looked tall and long but healthy and curved, in such an effortless way. Her hair was always coiffed, her beautiful smile painted right in the lines. She worked at Mullers (the department store on the corner of Ryan and Division) until she married Papa and had my uncle Joe. I imagine her every customer fell in love with her, with her gentle, friendly demeanor and that megawatt smile.

She grew up poor and never went to college, but always she proved that real class and deep beauty and true grace aren’t things you can pay for anyway. She made everyone feel good. Loved, heard, spotlighted, cared for. She made me feel that way always.

Her meals were legendary. When I think of her as a young mother with four little ones (including the twins who came last and as a surprise; two instead of one?), I conjure a vision of a woman still glam, a cigarette between her slender fingers, pots bubbling on the stove, pantyhose a pretty nuisance. She made all of her children’s clothes and all the cheesecakes for Papa’s restaurant too. I can't see how she did it.

When I came to know Nanny, she was rounder, perhaps a bit less glam, saggier. She’d stopped smoking, thank goodness. Her hair was always colored just the right shade of Nanny-brown, and her skin still smelled of the Oil of Olay she massaged into each night, and her smile still shone as painted and bright as ever. She still seemed so fabulous and glam.

I used to call her “Foxy” or “You Fox!” and tease her about going out for nights on the town. She’d laugh so hard, happy tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. I loved how her short-sleeve button down shirt was always tucked neatly into her elastic-waisted pants with a wadded up tissue stowed between two fastened button holes. You could never be too sure about needing a Kleenex at some point during the day.

We’d sit at her ancient kitchen table, black Formica with gold and black legs, and I’d wriggle her engagement and wedding bands from her increasingly gnarled finger and plunge them into that toxic jewelry cleaner you can buy at the drug store. That stuff made the included brush fall apart, for pete’s sakes! Papa’s name was Pete. I like that coincidence.

Anyway, I’d shimmy out from the white gold prongs the accumulated pie crust and bacon drippings and green bean strings and whatever else had gotten stuck, and once again, her yellow diamond would shine, and she’d tell me about Papa or Mullers or the restaurant days. The veins in her hands were ever more pronounced, and her fingernails became more and more ridged over the years. Sometimes, she’d let me file and shape her nails, the ones painted red in so many old pictures.

I thought her hands were beautiful, the veins and ridges like memory paths to the past. Her skin was so silky soft smooth, like the thinnest, most fine cloth a silkworm could weave. No party of my body has ever felt like that.

Sometimes I’d check the back of her hair for “holes,” the ones that come after naps. Cathy colored Nanny’s hair for years and always did just the right shade. She did it for Nanny’s funeral I think? I hope. It seems right that she would have. But maybe not. I don't remember.

Nanny was an old-fashioned lady to the end. I have never in my life worn a camisole, but she wore one every day. Over her bra and under her shirt. I detest undergarments like camisoles and slips, but I think to her they were a sort of feminine uniform. And she was always so lovely.

Towards the end, when she couldn’t go to the beauty parlor, and her arm didn’t work, and her eyes and hearing were failing too; when her hands were curled in and she spent most of every day in her trusty recliner, I remember thinking she was still so beautiful. And how I missed her before she was even gone.

That body couldn’t last forever, and at the end, I didn’t want it to. It wasn’t a good life, but selfishly, I want her back. I want to file her nails and watch her lips curl into a smile, want to sit in her kitchen and feel that everything will be good and OK.

People tell me I have her smile, and I couldn’t wish for more. 

The Ride and The Laughter (Mother, May !?)

I grew up in southwest Louisiana, in a flat, mid-sized town one parish north of the Gulf and about thirty miles from the Texas border. Lake Charles was the town in which my mother had been raised, and although she hadn’t planned to return, she and Dad did just that when I was five and my sister was 2. The allure of in-town grandparents and a full medical practice after so many years of med school, residency and skimping by was too great to pass up.

745 miles away, east-northeast, is a tiny, hilly town in north Georgia. Toccoa is tucked in a corner of the state just about thirty miles from the South Carolina border. It’s where my father grew up. Like my mother, Dad never planned to return to his hometown. Unlike her, he didn’t. But his parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew remained in Toccoa, and so we visited regularly, most often for Christmas.

To get there, we drove; Mom, Dad, my sister, Elia, and I packed in whatever land-yacht Mom had at the time. She went through several Oldsmobile Cutlass sedans before moving on to a string of three identical Lincoln Town Cars. 

In any case, the drive from Lake Charles to Toccoa was long: 10 hours if you hauled ass and didn’t stop, but who doesn’t need to pee, eat or stretch legs in desperation? And so it usually took longer. Mom always said she’d help drive, but as soon as she took the wheel, she’d start nodding off from boredom. Dad would then again become captain of our ship.

Driving east through south Louisiana is one of my favorite things to do: the Atchafalaya freeway and swamp basin is one of the most magical places on earth. I feel deeply rooted, calm and right when I’m driving over that long expanse. I’d go back and forth all day if I could, imagining the gators in the murky depths, looking for regal egrets and herons, watching fisherman cast from their pirogues and flat-bottomed boats.

Once you leave Louisiana and enter Mississippi though, nelly is it boring. Just dull as all get out. And then you have Alabama which is not much better although Mobile is pretty. And then Georgia where at least the land gets hilly and at least you're finally in the state of your destination.

There was little to amuse us during those rides beyond good music and fun stories. We’d stop for snacks and gas, run around a bit, get back in. Invariably during these long drives, many farts were passed. We labeled them: Dutch Oven; Silent But Deadly; Wet; etc. It sounds revolting, but we thought we were hilarious. “The family that plays together, stays together” we’d laugh, tears streaming down our faces. The worst stinkers resulted in what we termed Blow Outs. 

Blow Outs involved rolling down all the car windows simultaneously and screaming BLOW OUT at the tops of our lungs! When you’re driving 65 miles an hour, Blow Out is an effective way of airing out your car and releasing any frustration you might have about still being stuck inside a sedan full of flatulence on the flattest, most boring roads in the world. (Well, I hadn’t yet driven through Ohio and Indiana, but you get my drift). 

We dreaded those long drives to and from tiny Toccoa, but if you ask anyone in my family now, I bet we’d all agree they were special times in their own ways. No technology then, no screens. We really spent time together, talking, laughing, playing license plate bingo, and, yes, farting. BLOW OUT!