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Shoe

MARISSA QUENQUA

This is an excerpt from a longer piece about my relationship to shoes as a disabled femme. Only by rising and speaking can those of us with invisible disabilities incite awareness and change.

I’m a femme who hates shoe shopping. I have mild cerebral palsy that’s mostly invisible. My balance is shaky, my leg muscles are spastic and my arches are weak. I don’t know whether or not a pair of shoes would “work” for me until I try them on and walk around the store. Even then, what works on a store carpet might not work on a sidewalk. As a teen, I knew my mother’s meager income might be wasted on shoes I thought worked when we bought them, but didn’t when I tried to wear them in the world. You can’t return worn shoes. I had to get shoes at department stores like Macy’s or places like Easy Spirit, I couldn’t wear much cheaper shoes from Payless or Bakers, I’d fall down in them.

“How do those fit?” a clueless, exasperated salesgirl would ask us, looking at the stacks of shoe boxes surrounding me.

“Mmm,” I’d say.

“They look great,” she’d offer.

“Mmm,” I’d repeat, standing up and wiggling my toes. Mom looked at how they fit around the back. I looked down in the mirror affixed to the outside of the footstool. The shoes looked so good. I turned to the side and my young calf muscles popped. The cherry colored leather wrapped expertly around my feet, a buckle shone at the pinky toe, small heel stacked underneath me. They did look great. None of this mattered. All that matters is what happens when I walk.

I handed my mom my purse and started a lap around the store.

“You’re not coming out of the back of them,” Mom said as she watched me walk.

As I walked, I’d try to forget about what the shoes looked like. Nice leather, a great style and some extra height won’t comfort me when my arches are screaming in pain and all I can think about are my scrunched toes. I got into the rhythm of a stride and closed my eyes.

My pinky toe was being pushed to the side and the balance was off. I couldn’t last in these for more than ten minutes.

“Nope.” I said when I returned to my mother.

“No?” she sounded disappointed.

“Nope. They hurt.”

“Okay, take them off.”

The salesgirl came back.

“We’re taking those?”

“No, sorry.”

I tried on a pair of flat leather boots. They felt as good as sneakers. We took those.