Shoes Heavy as Stones

September makes me think of saddle shoes. It also makes me think of polished corridors and early mornings and the smell of pencil lead and chocolate milk and peanut-butter-white-bread sandwiches in waxed paper. But mostly, it’s saddle shoes.

All I ever wanted was a pair of shiny brown loafers with a penny tucked in each one because I was sure that loafers were the answer to my strong yearning to disappear at the beginning of each school year. And I was equally sure that those saddle shoes, heavy as stones on my narrow feet, were part of the reason why disappearing seemed my best option.

Marking the end of summer, September couldn’t help but be a hard month. Summer in Honeoye Falls meant sun and heat and fireflies and sweet corn and tree climbing and long bike rides out into the farmy lands. It was two months of glorious freedom, pulling on shorts and little tops and worn sneakers and seeing what adventures the day would bring.

We were feral creatures with skinned knees and dirty fingernails, messy hair, and furiously pounding hearts. We fended for ourselves in summer, and no one ever managed to make us feel small.

But then, September, and the long walk through town to the big brick school and the classrooms full of popular girls wearing loafers and popular boys wearing loafers and incomprehensible arithmetic problems and stern teachers and the ugly saddle shoes. My father insisted that my sister and I wear them so that our arches would not fall. I may have tried to make him understand the correlation between the shoes and invisibility, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t get his mind around that.

So every September, I taught myself to disappear. Here’s how you do it: first, imagine yourself far away, riding the very top branches of a maple tree or lying in a green rowboat on a deep, even greener lake; two, hide your hands in your desk so no one can see them and they’re safe; three, never ever raise your hand; four, never say anything unless you have to; and five, pretend your feet in those shoes were never born.

For the most part, this worked pretty well, and now a lifetime later, the saddle shoes have left their mark. I love to wear shoes like Doc Martens or policewoman shoes or thick-soled boots, all heavy and sturdy and decidedly there. They make me feel grounded and sure and safe and quite, quite visible. So the saddle-shoe suffering showed me this: I like stones on my feet.