Sole Searching

I am addicted to shoes. It started when I was thirteen and found the perfect pair for my needs at the time -- black, open-toed, four and a half inch heels -- in Komtar, Penang, for RM10. For years after, I returned every six months to get another pair, until they finally stopped stocking this particular model. I wore them everywhere; they were, after all, the only pair I owned.

But something happened when I could no longer get my footsies on those heels. A lust that would repeat itself in other moments of footwear-loss anchored itself in me. Even before I gained the power to buy, I understood the power and powerlessness of craving.

Now, I probably have two and a half dozen pairs. Maybe three dozen. Maybe... four. I will delight in counting them at the next opportunity, and delight in not telling you. Bags I have enough of to render even the most multi-armed deity insufficiently-endowed to carry them all. Jewelry I have enough of to put to shame anyone I have ever met (believe me, some have dared to contest). Clothes... let's not even go there. But these, with phases of exception, don't reduce me to a walking strutting, swaggering fetishist. I have never in recent memory been able to contend against the allure of a shoe shop, whether it's to enter it or swivel just to stare.

I have the flat feet of a dancer, broader at the toes, which the wrong pair of shoes can make scream murder (I've never been able to shake off the notion that my grandmother's chastising might have held true: my feet did grow funny because I sat with one leg crossed on the floor and one knee raised. She warned me the pretty shoes were going to be painful). The most expensive pair I have are black suede ankle boots from Nine West, a present. The least expensive, pointy-toed brown suede pumps, which I found in a bargain bin for RM5. The most unreasonable things I have done for shoes? Bought seven pairs in seven days to "overcome" the loss of a few thanks to a reckless/jealous ex-housemate. Convinced a friend to drive me to three different branches of a certain brand just so as to find that pair in that colour, my size. And I will not even mention the calluses that keep my toes constant company. I can't always have the world at my feet, and like anyone, I very rarely do -- but I sure can have some otherworldly beauties on them.

I'm the Imelda Marcos of spoken word, I told a friend recently. I've had audience members tell me they like my shoes while I'm onstage. I know exactly what Tori Amos meant when she said, "They're architecture, you know?": while I can't resist a pretty slipper, it's skyscrapers that are really my thing -- how else would I convince you I'm really five feet tall? Go on, tell me I'm perpetuating a throwback to foot-binding practices. I'll show you what my boots are made for.

This post was inspired by a few things. One, this guilt-lifting article by Lesley White (how could one not feel secure in their sanity in comparison to that "one smitten customer, a size 41, [who] buys her favourites in a neat 37 to display on a shelf, art works with potential investment value"?). Two, the fact that I found a tee-shirt the other day, hot pink with a sassy stilleto heel on it and the words Sole Searching emblazoned across it.

And three:

My solo show has been confirmed.

It was originally supposed to be called sizefoursandal, a sort of step-into-my-shoes invite. But I've decided that it's too cutesy. I'll be channeling Kali/Karna (as in Karna Considers Yuanfen) in the publicity material. And the contradiction doesn't work for me anyway, barefoot or not. I've got too many fangs to fool anyone. Weakness for shoes or not. So I did what I knew would make things fall into place. I went to my secret beach, and I found out. It will not be called sizefoursandal, although I may yet use that title elsewhere. It will be called something else, something I'm not going to reveal just yet. Everything comes together at my secret beach. It always does. And when that beach is gone, lost as it probably will be to the devastating expansion of the resorts, it will live on in my novel. My bolt-rope beach, sliver of paradise.

I must tell you about Karna.