Just the right height, and the exact color I was looking for. Seemed so perfect, designed beautifully, but ultimately structurally weak. I had been searching for a very long time. No hesitation, today would be the day. The quintessential nude pump would become mine.

Not A Fit

Nonessential thoughts regularly burrow into my gray matter, leaching more useful information.

Gray Matters

Whether it’s my parietal lobe that combines words into thoughts, or my temporal lobe which regulates language that causes my synapses to clog with minutia is unknown to me. None the less, years ago I heard the effervescent television host Kathy Lee Gifford command that we as women “must never go to sleep with our makeup on.” I filed that bit, and follow that edict. I never, never go to bed with makeup on.

Listening to Kathy Lee

A similar unimportant factoid occupies a slender space in my brain. When the words “find the color nude shoe that matches your skin tone, and you will always look good” bounced from the mouth of an overdressed TV style guru, I took heed and went searching for my perfect match, fit as it were. I’ve been looking for years.

The very effeminate uber hip guy at a trendy makeup counter told me my skin tone was unmatchable. “Mama we just don’t have a foundation shade for you. Your skin color is so unusual. Very yellow, with an undertone of…” I stopped listening. With chemists corralled in labs eight hours a day doing nothing but formulating foundations it didn’t seem possible that I was “unmatchable.” How could that be? I left. Dejected. Apart. Alone.

How would I ever be able to find my “just right” nude colored shoes if I didn’t know what color my face was. Doomed, I was doomed. As a painter, former textile designer, and probably the only kid that wanted to hang a poster of master color theorist, Joseph Albers in her dorm room, I fully understand the nuance of color. Color theory postulates that it is almost impossible to see a color in isolation. Color is always seen in relation to it’s surroundings. Given that fact, it would seem as if I would have to stand next to something, or somebody for all eternity if I could ever hope to fit in.

But there they were, my perfect shoes. The kiss of blue in the particular shade of  gray/taupe/beige was just subtle enough to compliment the yellow of my skin. All in all I found the skin-shoe theory incomprehensible, as my face is very far from my feet, and I knew I would never wear the shoes without tights, ergo, you would never see my actual skin tone, merely the color of whatever hosiery I would wear.

And then, there they were. Just like that line, when you least expect it…that’s when you’ll meet him, or just adopt and you’ll get pregnant they say. There was no “just” for me in becoming pregnant.

No Place

Baby Making Tools

The nameless area between my upper thigh and my backside became the pincushion where I injected myself with fertility drugs for years in the ceaseless effort to become a mother.

Box of Tears

Time after time I was reduced to tears over sentimental Kleenex commercials that showed a devoted mother wiping tears from her child’s eye. I had become desperate to have a child of my own. No adoption. I was married in 1984. My first daughter was born in 1989. I noticed the shoes because I had been looking for the shoes.

They weren’t directly in the shop window, but I saw them. I saw them because I had been searching for my perfect gray, taupe, beige shoes forever. And now seamlessly there they were. Just an ordinary shopping trip, in an ordinary mall, but I spotted them out of the corner of my eye.They were out of my size. A swift special order was dispatched to the New York store, and within days “my shoes” were at my door.

My assaultive unwrap had my feet in those shoes in less than two minutes. I knew instantly we were not a match. They didn’t fit. But they were my size. They were supposed to fit me. They were ordered especially for me. But they didn’t fit. Which didn’t mean I didn’t wear them. Oh, I wore them. And they looked amazing.

Jill and daughters Dixie and Zazu

The tights were the same hue as the shoes. My skirt was short, and there was no competition of any other color to cause any distraction. I was an elegant muted masterpiece. But I couldn’t walk. I was one of those women who made the ridiculous decision to sacrifice comfort for fashion. I was wearing shoes that were achingly, if not brutally uncomfortable. But I looked fantastic, so didn’t care what I felt like.

My shoe repair guy is as skilled as a brain surgeon. He deftly reconstructs leather and suede as if he were trained to do a craniotomy. A craniotomy is the surgical removal of part of the bone from the skull to expose the brain. Specialized tools are used to remove the section of bone called the bone flap. The bone flap is temporarily removed, then replaced after the brain surgery has been performed. 

If The Shoe Fits

My shoe guy has done his best to make my shoes comfortable enough to actually wear. But in this instance there will be no “if the shoe fits, wear it.” He has stretched the toe box, three times, and has either put in or removed parts and, different parts. Adrian is master tradesman. He has made some of my old shoes look new, and has reblacked bags more than thirty years old, giving them new life, making the leather look virgin.

Classic Black

But he couldn’t save these. I stood at the counter in the shop which smells like carnauba wax and shoe polish, and with all the earnest concern of a dedicated surgeon, he told me that while he hoped it would work, he couldn’t guarantee that I would ever be able to wear the shoes again. We have a cordial relationship. We like each other. He knows my mom. He cares about my comfort. But I didn’t care what he said, I wore the shoes again, and still again.

There is that man. The “him”. The right height, beautiful skin tone. Gorgeous from afar. A match. A fit. It’s on. And then you go out. So not a fit. So not a match. But it’s seductive, fun, sexy, intriguing, flattering, the pumped up excuses for being where you shouldn’t are endless. But you know. It’s irrefutable. For whatever reason, you know. He’s too ________, fill in the blank, or not enough… We know. But it doesn’t stop us. We go out again.

It Was My Him

My him (or one of my him’s) was so wrong for me, and I knew in a nanosecond. Our first date lasted nine hours. Our mismatch, two and a half years. Our ill-fitting love brought me to the jagged, splintered edge of darkness. I beat that horse to death trying to make us fit. Couldn’t be done.