For a kid who spent at least 40% of the year barefoot, I sure set a store by my shoes. Scene: I’d been trying to be cool with some other kids, and we went to a shoe store in the mall to try on the platform sandals, some of which increased our height by at least six inches. The two mean-girls-in-training that I was following around tried on many, many varieties and sizes of this basic type, snickering while the homely, perspiring young man scurried back and forth in an effort to find something they would like to buy. I felt his pain but perhaps mine was greater. I even tried on a few pairs of these shoes myself and pretended to seriously consider making a purchase.

Scene: I agreed to buy a pair of sneakers from a catalog (I almost said online!) when I was about eight. The shoes I selected were slender navy-blue canvas sneakers with a thin white band around the top of the sole. Some of the other kids in my class had shoes like this, and I wanted to have a pair of such narrow, elegant-looking shoes. Unfortunately, when my shoes arrived in the mail, I saw to my dismay that they were not slender in appearance. In fact, the toes of these shoes were somewhat rounded. I tried them on and began to wail. My mother asked me what was wrong. “They are supposed to be skinny!” I screamed. “These look like big balloons on my feet!” Then I pitched myself face-first on my bed and would not be comforted. Time and space have drawn a curtain over the scene at that point, so I don’t remember what happened after that.

Other shoes that have come and gone from my life: At age sixteen I got a pair of Dr Scholls, those sculpted wooden-soled sandals with the one buckled strap over the toes. I wore my first pair for several months, bunching up my toes to keep them from flying off, wincing when one slid forward so that my instep came down on the raised wooden edge that was supposed to fit behind my heel, until it finally occurred to me that I could tighten the buckles. For graduation I had a pair of white platform sandals that must have been two sizes too small, because the thing I remember most about my graduation was that my feet were killing me. At age nineteen I impulsively bought a pair of peacock-blue spike heels that I later wore to get married in. Somewhere around age 24, during my era of upscale second-hand stores, I found pair of four-inch-heeled suede sandals that put me within spitting distance of six feet. And to round out the period in which looking good mattered more than feeling good, I had a pair of high-heeled suede boots that went with just about everything and didn’t hurt my feet any more than I could tolerate.

And what do I wear now on my poor feet? Anything with a flat heel and plenty of support. I satisfy my taste for flair by putting red laces in brown shoes and occasionally buying a new pair of pristine white sneakers when I go to town.