Going Barefoot - Bonnie Smetts

When Julie moved to Oregon, I discovered slippers and now ten years later, I don’t think it’s a good thing. She moved back home to Portland and when I visited her in the giant creaking northwest-y house with a view of Mt. Hood out the windows, I froze. Julie had lived in California for five years but had never lost her love of open windows and fresh cold air. When she watched me cross her aged wood floors, my toes curling against the cold, and she offered me a pair of her slippers. She had a closet full. Very northwest-y too, most of them of fleece in deep shades of magenta, blue or forest green. I couldn’t wait to borrow slippers on my visit.

After a few stays in Portland, Julie inspired me to get slippers for home (where I’d been content with my collection of heavy sox for cold days). My feet never again touched my bare floor, my slippers were there to catch them as I slid off the bed each morning. For someone who wore no shoes four months a year all my childhood, I quickly lost all toughness on the bottoms of my feet thanks to slippers. But I loved them, I loved being warm. I wore out a few pair of fleece, the same kind Julie kept for guests, and I finally bought a suede pair to last many winters.

I knew I was losing something with the slippers but I didn’t want to see it. I could no longer dash from my back door to my car without walking as if I were stepping on broken glass. I’d lost all toughness. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t wash off my wetsuit in the driveway, standing on the now too rough surface. Yet indoors I couldn’t sit for a minute at my desk without my slippers. I’d become dependent on their fuzzy warmth.

This summer I decided to reclaim my feet. I’ll still borrow Julie’s slippers when I visit in Portland but at home where I should be able to survive without them, I’ve put them aside. I walk the length of my rough driveway, tipping and uttering ouch, ooh, ouch. It’s practice. As a kid I walked the block to my friends’ houses without shoes. I need to at least walk from the bedroom to the dining room in bare feet.

I’m reclaiming the bottoms of my feet and my freedom—to rush outside to watch the sunset with a neighbor, or carry something to the car when I’ve forgotten to put on my shoes. And when other parts of me are showing signs of age, this is something I can easily revive.

This winter I’ll keep my fuzzy mules nearby but like an athlete acclimating to running to high altitude, I’ll be adding minutes to non-slipper time to what I’ve built up this summer. That way by next summer, I’ll be going barefoot, at least a few steps at a time.