"What are your feet doing?"
On tremendous and treacherous times, in and out of shoes
“You’re never safe unless you feel your feet.”
On Sunday morning as we were getting ready to go Bali Wake Park for the first time, I was listening to
’s brilliant and inspiring podcast, The Shift. Sam’s conversation with award-winning editor Lindsay Nicholson was so astonishing that I’ll need at least another three listens to truly take it all in. But for whatever reason I was particularly struck by some advice that Lindsay said she received from a coach in California when she was working with horses as therapy. During a session, when a horse was paying no attention to Lindsay, the coach called out, “You’re in your head!” Lindsay thought, “Of course I’m in my head. I’m always in my head.” The coach said, “What are your feet doing? Can you feel your feet?”That struck a chord with me. I too am always in my head. As I stood in the kitchen on Sunday listening to that conversation, I thought about what my feet were doing. I felt the concrete beneath them, cold from the air-conditioning we usually have on in just that one room, the room where we eat and watch TV and read books on the window seat that’s big enough to accommodate the four of us at once. I felt the distribution of my weight into all the parts of my feet. I saw the callouses that have developed on my big toes from wearing Birkenstocks every day. I thought about Lindsay Nicholson’s words: “You’re never safe unless you feel your feet. It actually goes back to our hunter-gatherer past, when we had to run away from danger. You had to know what the ground was like to run over.”
I couldn’t help but think back to those words again later in the day, when we were all sunburnt and happy after a day of kneeboarding and attempts at wakeboarding and hours of clambering over Total Wipeout-style obstacle courses in a lake just outside of Sanur. While we were waiting for the Grab to collect us from the park to take us home, I casually mentioned to Mike that I thought I might have done something to my left foot. By the time we got home I was in agony, and Mike and the boys had to carry my bag and help me inside.
Luckily, I haven’t had to seek medical attention for the injury. I took some Ibuprofen and rested as much as possible for 24 hours. On Monday afternoon I hobbled to the supermarket with the boys, and realised that walking the streets of a town with no footpaths while recovering from an ankle injury is more or less impossible - and the boys helped me carry the shopping to the taxi. My hunting and gathering only involved going to Grand Lucky, not hunting big game and bringing it down with my bare hands, but still I wasn’t safe doing it. It made me realise that I need to be more aware of what my feet are doing, and to do everything I can to protect them from injury. My wakeboarding career, as much as I loved it, was short-lived.
My life in high heels
Until I met Mike when I was 39, I was ALWAYS in heels. Big heels. I’d wear three-inch heels to spend a day walking around London or going to a picnic or visiting a friend. Heels were just an extension of my legs. I was a drinker too, so I’d occasionally fall off my heels - there was one time when I couldn’t go to work in the morning after stumbling in a tube station and turning my ankle the night before - but I’d always recover and strap the heels back on. I’d read those articles about how damaging high heels were for your legs and back in the same way that I now read articles about how important it is to drink lots of water. Uh-huh. Yep. Where’s my coffee?
Before I moved to Israel with Mike in 2010, I went on a work trip to Tel Aviv. My colleagues there kindly took a day out of the office to show me around Jerusalem, the city we were moving to soon after. I was wearing three-inch wedges that day, and felt bit of a plonker having to hold onto something to keep me upright as we walked around the ramparts of the Old City. So before I left the UK I invested in some comfortable flats. By the time I moved in with my new 6’6” boyfriend (now husband), I’d more or less divested myself of my heel habit.
There have been a few occasions when I’ve had to dust the heels off. The photo below was taken when I was three-months pregnant with the boys. A red satin camisole, frilly knickers and burlesque feather fans just wouldn’t have looked right with Butterfly Twists.
It took me a while to let go of my self-image as a wearer of heels, but eventually I began to celebrate the new identity. In 2018, after we’d moved from Switzerland to Pakistan and then to Fiji, I posted this picture of my trainers on the beach in Suva, with a caption that read:
“Until ten years ago I lived in high heels. I just so can’t imagine that now! The cobbled streets of Jerusalem, the steep slope of the roads in the Old Town of Geneva, the potholed pathways of Pakistan and the two little humans who constantly run rings around me have shown me the need for comfort and speed. Trainers and Birkenstocks rule!”
The barefoot mother
One day when we’d been living in Fiji for a while, we decided to take a drive from Suva to Pacific Harbour, about 40 minutes’ drive away, to have lunch. It was only when we got to Uprising Beach Resort that I realised I’d forgotten to wear shoes. Now that is a sign that you’ve adapted to island life. I’ve regressed somewhat after three years in big city Beijing, but my feet are glad to be feeling the earth beneath them again now that we’re back to the beach.
Perhaps the time in my life when I’ve been most aware of the ground beneath my feet was when Mike and I took the boys on holiday to Myanmar in 2017. Keir and Viggo were eighteen months old and still happy to be carried around strapped to our bodies, so the four of us covered many miles on foot. Because it’s customary to remove shoes in sacred places in Myanmar, and many of the streets you walk and the hills you climb are sacred, it becomes a habit to go shoe-free. I loved feeling the ground beneath my feet there, and being hyper aware of every step I took, of the need to place my feet carefully so as not to injure myself or fall over holding one of my babies. It was an excellent exercise in mindfulness.
Act your age, not your shoe size
My feet, once a size 38, grew by a size and a half when I was pregnant with the boys, and they’ve been their new size ever since. I think they had to get bigger so that I can stand firm on the ground, and be the pillar against which my boys can rest. And my heart, I think, while it had the company of two other hearts also beating inside of my body, grew at a similar rate. It had to. It had to be able to accommodate the love and compassion and resilience and endless patience that are required to be a parent. My gumption has grown too, and so has my bravery. All are needed to tread this precarious parenting path, and more generally the path through an adventurous life, to be aware of its pitfalls and also to appreciate the beauty of the views along the way.
It’s a relief that a big heart doesn’t require a new wardrobe. My expanded gumption and bravery can still fit into my old clothes too. But I’ve had to reconsider my footwear. I’ve given away the last of my heels, and I love going barefoot. And at every moment of every day, I’m practicing being mindful of what my feet are doing. We’ve still got many roads to travel, these feet and me, and many sacred roads to tread.
How about you?
I think I was pretty late in coming to the realisation that comfort and speed are worthwhile things to consider. During my twenties and thirties I only wore trainers to train, and I wouldn’t have been seen dead in running shoes unless I was actually, you know, running. How about you? Do you value style over comfort, or comfort over style? Or have you found ways of managing to combine the two?
I’d be so grateful if you could click the heart below and let me know your thoughts in the comments. And please mention brands of shoes that might offer both style and comfort for the feet of ageing women still running around after little kids!
With love from the beach,
Michelle xxx
If I can’t run for a bus in them, I won’t wear them. But can’t quite bring myself to actually get rid of the heels; they’ve become wardrobe ornaments. My feet have also gone up a size in the past 2 years, and all I’ve bought since then are trainers and Archies arch-support flip flops. Trouble is, I’m developing an expensive trainer habit …
Haha you know me! Show free forever. My shoes got pinched a few months ago and as they were the only ones I had, I was shoe free for about a week!
I am doing the opposite though and trying to wear them more (my fake Birkenstocks) to try and keep my feet a bit cleaner and a bit safer from the dirty streets!