This afternoon it occurred to me that I was wearing the same pair of shoes I had on when I got retrenched in Sydney a little more than two years ago. A pair of black Nine West pumps, I got them on sale from the store on Military Road in Mosman, which is the least affordable suburb in Australia. I’ve never really liked them: Nine West might be one of those can’t-go-wrong brands you wear when you’re feeling insecure, but they give me blisters and the soles are prone to slipping.
In fact, that’s the source of my emotional connection to them. Thanks to these shoes, I fell smack on my face on a wet pavement near Circular Quay, right in front of a group of British tourists. I was mortified. One of them asked if I was alright; I wasn’t, and I sobbed all the way back to my rented apartment across the harbour. (You can read about the snot en trane in greater detail in one of the chapters in this book.)
More than anything else I own, these shoes mark the point at which my life started to go thoroughly pear-shaped. I’ve worn them since because, well, they’re there, and I don’t want to imbue inanimate objects with any unnecessary power. They’re just things after all.
Things, of course, are also the mute but solid chronicles of our past. Other footwear in my cupboard evokes memories too. The Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates takkies, which I wear when I’m indulging my inner hipster; I wore one each during a pitch for a World Cup campaign (we didn’t win). The hiking boots I used on a walking trail in Nyalaland, a wondrous and beautiful place in the north of the Kruger Park. There are shoes I bought because the MD of the ad agency where I worked at the time told me to dress better (and leave my husband, but that’s another story), and the boots I wore almost every day in winter when I worked in Sydney, because it was often rainy and cold, and they were flat and practical.
There too is the expensive pair of velvet peep-toes I wore to the
Pulse of the City launch; they’re the highest pair of heels I own and surprisingly comfortable, even if, at the end of the party, I was walking around barefoot as usual.
The pumps and the peep-toes represent the bookends to my chicklit-meets-kitchen-sink drama travails: the pumps one of the worst days of my life, and the peep-toes one of the best. Funny that after writing the first draft of this post and walking to my car in the rain (will this bloody rain ever stop?), I should slip on wet tarmac and fall again. Arse over kettle, as my grandmother would put it. At least I didn’t land on my face this time, though I can feel my right knee seizing up as I type. The bruise is developing nicely, and forms a companion piece to the huge bleeding blister just above the big toe of my right foot.
So it turns out that between starting this post and finishing it, it has been determined that my days of wearing those black Nine West pumps are over. I’ll look at them and contemplate the history they hold, but I will not walk in them again.
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