A Pair to Remember

You can try all you want but you can’t rush summer.

I wish I’d been wise enough to understand this before now. Parents have a way of giving advice, beyond your years, in anticipation of the day you come to terms with having not listened the moment they gave the advice. In this case it was a grandparent. A mother, given a second chance at motherhood in the grandchild left behind by her most beloved and problematic daughter.

I believe it was April, the time of the month when the sun shines bright enough to make you think it’s safe to go outside. I emerged from my dull rose bedroom, still adorned with dollies and posters of my favorite artists, and she immediately knew something was up. I had enough of a habit of sitting up in my room watching reruns of old tv shows and reading books to cause a stir whenever it dawned upon me to venture out of it. My grandmother had been watching tv herself, a lit cigarette hang from her mouth as she paid little attention to some documentary, all the while carefully replacing the buttons on one of my school uniform shirts. I walked by her without saying a word, saw ashes from the cigarette drop into the sewing kit tin as I tried to inconspicuously put on my purple puffer jacket and begin opening my new shoe box.

“Girl, what are you doing?”

“I’m about to go outside. On the porch.” I was halfway asking and halfway attempting to say it without having to ask at all and she knew it. The porch was about the only place I was allowed to go and was only going somewhere without actually going anywhere so I felt I shouldn’t even be required to ask.

“Alright, and what you think you’re doing?”

To this day I despise extensive lines of questioning for this very reason. Back then I knew better than to present too much push back so I replied calmly yet as a matter of factly, “I’m gonna put on my new shoes. I want to wear them, I’m only going on the porch.”

I still remember the beige-platform-strappy-sandals, the kind you get from one of those discount shoe stores adults hate to admit they bought cute shoes from. The outsoles were all black, completely lacking in grip, and ultimately durability.

I was in love with them.

At twelve, they were the most grown up shoes I’d ever owned. No more pink, no more pastel, no flowers, no themes, no characters, just beige. At the time, I wanted to be just beige. To just be normal, to have something normal, to grow up and leave home and move beyond being the overprotected little girl somebody’s mother left behind.

I’d have to make it to the porch first.

I continued opening the shoe box and unwrapping the tissue paper and she asked further, this time with a kind of knowing look on her face, “Girl. What do you think you’re doing?” All I could do was stare back at her in confusion to mask the chaos I felt building. I knew what she was trying to do. She hated my shoes, hated that they were grown up, hated my aunt for buying me something she wouldn’t, hated that I was even going outside. In that moment, I’d have hated her and figured she hated me too if she told me to put them away.

She was a hater.

Nonetheless, I explained that since it was so nice outside I wanted to break in my new shoes.

“Baby, it’s April” she said as she continued sewing without even having to look.

I knew what month it was, so I begrudgingly yet softly replied, “Yeah, it’s spring and I want to try my new shoes on.

“Honey, summer isn’t going anywhere. It’ll get here when it gets here. Nothing can stop it or make it come any faster than it’s coming, it’ll be here before you know it. Go ahead, go outside.” She clipped the white thread with her little silver sewing scissors , gather up the remaining strings and spools and tossed them all back into the sewing kit without giving me another look.

With that I finished strapping on my shoes. As I stood up I felt just a little bit taller, I’d have to get used to it. I looked at her for both approval and to prove a point. I was growing up, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. I walked through the long hallway down the stairs carefully, falling was no option, and I had no time to validate any doubt on her part of my being ready for these shoes, or the weather for that matter.

The sun was shining bright, just like I thought, from the minute I opened the front door. I sat down on the steps of the front porch. The green paint was chipping even worse since the winter. An unusually quiet spring day, I was so used to seeing people coming and going and sitting outside themselves I was surprised to be all alone outside that day. Before I could even brace myself it started.

The wind.

Something like a spring breeze at first then colder, much colder than I could have suspected. This was no breeze, nothing short of a winter wind whipped right through my coat and attacked my bare toes, seemingly to let me know winter was still in the building and would not be hustled away by me or my little shoes. The only possible thing that could have made matters worse than admitting I’d been wrong, was my aunt making a surprise visit. I saw her coming down the street and for a moment felt excited to show her how much I loved the shoes she’d picked out.

“What are you doing out here? It’s so cold outside!”

Wow. Cahoots. Both of them. I began to verbally scold her in my mind for even buying me the shoes in the first place. She knew what time of year it was and she should have known her own mother better than me. I was appalled she’d even put me in that position. Now I’d have to sit in the cold to prove them both wrong.

Eventually, summer managed to make an appearance, and everywhere I went I wore my shoes. Racing up and down the street along with jumping rope took a toll on the sandals. The dirt and scrapes from the sidewalk quickly took them from just plain beige to just plain filthy, I’d even worn the soles out down to nothing in some spots. I still loved them, children have a way of loving something far past evidence of its being completely destroyed.

My grandmother asked me to throw them away once summer was over. With one look at them anyone would have known she was right to tell me to toss them away. A piece of me wished she could have done something to bring them back to life. I wished that there was something in her round cookie tin, turned sewing kit, with the pear tree painting on the lid that could fix my shoes. I wanted to come to her with my broken shoes the same way I had with so many other things I’d ripped to shreds and left with missing parts over the years, before I became so embarrassed and secretive of my mistakes. There were many other shoes after that, along with skirts she didn’t approve of, and eyeliner much too smoky for underaged eyes. When I got a little older, I’d ask to borrow from her sewing kit, so I could fix my own clothing mishaps. I’d reach under her bed where she kept it, take a glance at the pears and dig right in. She would often remind me I had no idea what I was doing, and I’d be sure to sit right there, with whatever item needed fixing, simply to show her I would keep on trying until I figured it out.