Read My Feet!

Next week, the New York Museum of Arts and Design will open a new exhibit entitled “Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection.” The exhibit is accompanied by the publication of the former Secretary of State’s book Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box (HarperCollins). In it, she describes how her choice of jewels sometimes communicated a nonverbal message as she went about her diplomatic rounds. The MuseumViews web site (http://museumviews.com/?p=851)
explains:

"Over the years, Secretary Albright’s pins became a part of her public persona, and they chart the course of an extraordinary journey, carving out a visual path through international and cultural diplomacy. A highlight of the exhibition will be the brooch that began Secretary Albright’s unusual use of pins as a tool in her diplomatic arsenal. After Saddam Hussein’s press referred to her as a serpent, Secretary Albright wore a golden snake brooch pinned to her suit for her next meeting on Iraq. Read My Pins will feature the famous snake brooch among many other pins with similar stories-some associated with important world events, others gifts from international leaders or valued friends."

I had a chance to hear Madame Albright three years ago when she appeared at the American Academy of Religion meeting in Washington, DC. She is a wonderful role model—smart, tough, and winsome. And her sense of humor is sharp as the business end of a brooch.

The news of this exhibit got me thinking how our various items of apparel speak for all of us—perhaps especially in ways that subvert our more obvious messages about ourselves. I, too, have some brooches. My favorites include a beautiful landscape cameo that belonged to my great-grandmother; a miniature black & white photograph of Central Park bought from a street vendor outside the Metropolitan Museum; and a tiny silver chorus line of exuberant dancing figures. But my pins don’t “speak” as Albright’s did. The accessories in my closet that speak the loudest, and perhaps the most impertinently, are not my jewelry, but my shoes.

There are the utilitarian shoes and boots, of course. These are the ones that carry me out into the garden or the gym. They’re not glamorous, but they get the job done. They don’t have much to say. They are a “give us the facts, ma’am” bunch. Some of them don’t even live in the closet. The plastic clogs, the Wellies, the shabbiest flip-flops, hang out in the garage. No interest in hobnobbing with the fancy numbers inside. They like to stay close to the action outdoors.

Then there are the workhorses who stay indoors—cozy fleece-lined slipper-boots stretched out on their sides on the floor like sleepy cats. These technically are not mine. I “borrowed” them from my daughter and then somehow just didn’t manage to get them in the box of stuff to go with her to college. On cool winter nights (yes, Atlanta does get winter), there is nothing better than putting on my jammies and padding around in these squashy moon boots, my feet toasty warm and cushioned. Slippers don’t get out much, so they have little to say. They don’t talk, they purr.

The talkers, on the other hand, get the shelf space. There are the 4” black Steve Madden stilettos (my only really high heels, but doesn’t every woman have to have at least one pair, if only to remember the glamorous nights of her youth?) They don’t get out much either, but when they do, they make a ferocious roar: “There’s a lot of life in me yet!” Never shy, they make a satisfying click-clack on the floor. They accompanied me to the one and only party I ever attended at the White House last year. (I brought along a separate pair of shoes in a bag to get me to the hotel and back. They are what my friend Barbara Borsch calls “taxi shoes” – not made for walking!) I may wear flats for a week after taking these babies out for a spin, but they are soooo worth the trouble!

Then there are the tangerine suede heels that I wore to give a scholarly paper a few years ago. I wore the requisite suit for the occasion, but while the rest of me did the required “talking head” work of the day, these little slides carried the message: “Refusing to be stuffy!” They were joined this year by a pair of dark red peep-toe slingbacks, and a pair of bright red patent kitten heels. These trotted happily along with me as I joined an academic procession in my veddy veddy serious Harvard doctoral robe. Nice match for the crimson “crows’ feet” embroidered on the robe.

My workaday flats are mostly of the pointy-toe variety. While my husband occasionally comments on their witchy character, I prefer them to my snub-nosed ballet flats. Quilted ballet flats say “I’m sweet and harmless.” My pointy flats say, “I may not be wearing high heels, I’ve still got quite a kick!” Female professors—maybe especially those who teach pastoral care, supposedly such a “soft” subject—need to be a little edgy now and then. Just as a reminder. Tough love is a good thing.

There were some shoes that finally had to be ousted. Two identical pairs of square-toed pumps, one black, one bone, with chunky 1” heels and patent toe caps—these were my “church lady” shoes. I wore them to church for years, one pair before Labor Day, and one pair after, as I went about my Sunday parish duties. They spoke of sobriety, duty, and good etiquette. They liked to be worn with pantyhose. They did not clip-clop, they hit the floor with a dull smack. As my mother likes to say, these little drudges “will never go out of style because they never were in style.”

It finally dawned on me that the very women I imagined I would impress with my good taste and conformity were showing up in church in very different footwear—including everything from orthopedics to sneakers to Manolo Blahniks! There was definitely some fictional blue-haired woman in my head, wearing a mink and pearls, who would never be caught dead in anything other than stockings and square heels. I finally figured out that it was she who put me up to purchasing these babies—on sale, at an outlet mall no less. I sat her down inside my head and we had a little chat. “I appreciate your input,” I said, as I started putting the boxy pumps in a bag to give away. “But times have changed, and we’re movin’ on.” “I see,” she intoned, and her image began to waver and dissolve. As she disappeared into the mists of my imagination, I saw that she had changed her shoes, too. They were bright turquoise. With rhinestones. Next Sunday, when I’m in the pulpit, I won’t go that far. But I’ll be wearing black kitten heels. Pointy ones.

I have come to a new realization in the last few nights as I got back into dance class after a very long hiatus. All those shoes are mostly speaking to other people. Their messages are for show. They tell the rest of the world what I’m up to, and who I am beyond whatever I might be saying at the moment. They complicate my persona, and I hope make for a bit of fun and a bit of mystery.

But dance class happens barefoot. In this exercise combining modern dance and yoga, my feet carry me unadorned. As the soles of my feet come into contact with the bare floor, I begin to feel my roots again. Shoes give messages to the rest of the world. But feet speak directly to me: I am here. Now. On this floor, in this place, with its foundations on this solid ground, on this earth. I live in a body made up of naked soft flesh and hard, strong bones. I can be still, I can be balanced, and I can move, slowly or quickly, in ways that echo the graceful dance of the entire universe.

Shoes are fabulous—literally, fabricated, made up, fanciful, the work of human craft and design. But my feet, my body, are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” These amazing, vulnerable feet bring me back to the mystery of my creation, and speak of holy things. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who speak peace.” I flex and point, flex and point, to the sound of the instructor’s voice, and give thanks for this life in the body—in-carnation.

Of course, there’s still the toenail polish to consider… “Bright Tropical Mango.” Read my feet!