Shoe Fly

“When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits, the belly is forgotten; and when the heart is right, ‘for’ and ‘against’ are forgotten.” – Chaunt Tzu

When I was a child, my father used to take me to Marty’s Shoe store on Fifth Avenue each year for a new set of footwear.

I remember Marty and his employees as these kindly old guys—they looked old to me, anyway--who knew every single thing there was to know about shoes.

I’d sit down, get measured me up, do a brief walk up and down the store to make sure the shoes fit properly while my dad shot the breeze with Marty, and then we’d leave with a new pair of Stride Rites.

I’ll admit this is not the most exciting memory I could share, but these mundane recollections are becoming more important to me as the years go by and I realize how precious they really are.

I hadn’t thought about Marty until my favorite pair of walking shoes wore down to a Charley Chaplin level of disrepair and forced me out of my Covid-induced incarceration for a new pair of kicks and an important lesson in mindfulness.

I’ve tried to avoid brick-and-mortar shopping as much possible since the start of the coronavirus doomsday tour.

I limit my purchasing escapades to the essentials of food and clean laundry before racing back to my home for a round of manic hand-washing and the recital of a few thousand Hail Marys.

When my shoes started going south on me and my go-to response to any emergency—extreme denial—wasn’t helping any, I wasn’t sure what to do next.

I do not order shoes online. Maybe it’s the experience from Marty’s but I have to see, touch, and try out shoes in the real world before I shell out for them.

And I’m not about to get into a mail order hot potato contest with Amazon sending shoes back and forth until I get a pair that fits.

I wasn’t sure if any shoe stores were left in light of the wave of pandemic-sparked bankruptcies and store closings, but I managed to find one place on Fifth Avenue near my favorite vegetable store.

This corner hellhole was staffed by a strange little man who was talking to somebody on his cellphone in some language I didn’t understand while waving a pair of shockingly overpriced shoes under my nose.

Shoes for Industry

I don’t know what this fellow was saying to his friend, but I doubt that it had anything to do with customer service.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, lying through my facemask.

The next stop was a chain shoe store on 86th Street a few doors from the gym I have not seen since March.

If felt so strange being back here after 5 months and I didn’t try to count all the closed storefronts—I’m depressed enough already.

I could see the place was crowded, disturbing in these plague days, but I was stunned by the noise when I walked in.

The sound system was blasting to nightclub levels and I was tempted to remove my hearing aids to spare myself some agony.

Marty’s shoe store was as quiet as the library, for God’s sake, and we somehow managed to survive.

I was so miserable I wanted to run out the door screaming Marty’s name.

The music was blaring, people were shouting, thanks to the goddamn music, and no one seemed to give a rat’s ass if I ever got new shoes or not.

And then it happened.

I felt this sense of calm come over me as I just accepted the rotten situation. I didn’t force it, I didn’t order myself to calm down, which usually makes things worse; I just let it happen.

I’m sure this sudden clarity was a result of the meditation I’ve been doing each morning for years now.

It can quite challenging to focus on my breathing for 20 minutes, but I do experience these rare moments when my mind is clear, present and calm. And now it was happening under battlefield conditions.

I got my new shoes, bolted from the store, sat down on a bench and put them on. Oh, yes, these were just right.

I tossed my old shoes into the nearest trash can. It’s going to be tougher to throw out the old thought patterns but I taking a step in the right direction.