Yesterday, I wore hot pink flats to school.
Such an announcement may be unwarranted for other people, but it is indeed news for me. I have always thought of shoes the same way I've thought of cars: as nothing more than practical and necessary conveyances. For years, I rotated three pairs of Nine West kitten-heeled, pointy-toed shoes at work, identical except for their color--black, brown, and tan. Now that I'm officially middle-aged, I've switched to flats--in black, brown, and tan, of course.
Sure, I've occasionally been excited about shoes, but only when in service to an activity: my LLBean duck boots, acquired early-pandemic for the wet and muddy spring; my Saloman hiking boots, purchased before my week-long backpacking trip in Yellowstone; my La Sportiva climbing shoes, which proved I was taking on climbing as a real hobby, not an occasional trip. But to be excited about a pair of business casual shoes? Never.
My indifference is partly due to my practical nature and partly due to the fact that I have absolutely no sense of style. To compensate, I dress as suburban-mom basic as possible. Not conspicuously out of fashion; not on-trend. Think "fade into the wallpaper" style.
A couple months ago, a friend passed along some gently-used shoes that she not longer needed. Most fit my "wallpaper" style, but one was a pair of dress flats, in a slipper style. They were clad in a faux fur, with small black spots upon a tan background. I looked at them in astonishment. These shoes were not wallpaper! Should I choose to wear them, they "said" something. I wasn't quite sure what the message was, but I certainly didn't feel worthy of carrying it. In fact, the idea of conveying an intentional message through my shoes was terrifying--surely others would see through my attempt at style and inwardly laugh.
They sat in my closet for a few weeks until I finally worked up the nerve to wear them to school with an entirely neutral outfit. The response at school? Nothing--I teach at an all-boys school. They wouldn't remark on my outfit if I showed up in a chicken costume. Still, I felt a little daring, a little wrong, and a little proud all day.
A few weeks later, I met a friend in the evening, and she was wearing hot pink flats with jeans and a casual top. Maybe I was overly emboldened from the fur slippers, but something happened that had never happened before. Those hot pink flats moved me. I had to have some.
I occasionally get weird obsessions with acquiring random things: moss art for our bathroom; a Roka backpack that I saw in a gift shop in Scotland. If I put it off long enough, many of these obsessions pass. The obsession for hot pink shoes did not. I justified my longing by scouring Poshmark for a secondhand find. And there they were: Rothy's Dragon Fruit flats, size 8.
I tried to play coy. I resisted for a few days. I chalked by obsession up to some subliminal Barbie mania leftover from the summer movie. And then, I bought them. I bought a used pair of hot pink flats for the same price they'd be sold for on Black Friday.
They arrived right before Thanksgiving, and yesterday, I wore them for the first time, with gray slacks and a black long-sleeved top. I stepped into the entirely empty hallway at 7:00am with a bit of spring in my step.
Even though another teacher called my shoes "ostentatious" (I chose to interpret the comment as a compliment), by halfway through first period, my spring was gone. It was clear maybe four students read the assigned chapter of The Great Gatsby; another student boasted he "read" an assigned essay by listening to the audiobook on 3.5 times speed. In my advanced class, one student said his writing didn't matter--he just capitulated to whatever he thought I wanted; the guidance counselor told me another student blamed my essay advice for his failure to be admitted to a summer program.
I felt the unending frustrations of being a teacher. But--and though I'm still not entirely sure what message they conveyed--I was wearing fabulously, fantastically, hot pink shoes.
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