A Pair of Shoes

My mother always wore Ferragamo shoes. Her tiny, narrow feet. Size 6 ½. Shelves which glided open effortlessly to reveal pairs of heels, flats and everything in between. Black suede, brown leather. She never detoured unless it was to buy tennis shoes, which she didn’t play, or golfing cleats to join my father. Exquisitely dressed…always…was my mother. Understated elegance could have started with her.

Years ago I bought my first pair of Ferragamos. My first and last. They were black flats and I thought I needed a more appropriate pair for the High Holy Days. I detoured from my local, hipster shoe store downtown to go to Arthur Beren, now long gone. It was just across from  Union Square and the large, department stores which usually overwhelmed me. The sales person, as I don’t remember gender so many years later, kneeled before me. Maybe like taking communion in the Catholic churches I found solace in while traveling through Europe. Here in San Francisco it was only Jewish synagogues, and only on the holidays. I don’t recall if I loved the shoes, or more the idea that I was inhaling my mother, if only via a pair of expensive, black leather Ferragamos. Maybe the shoes would make me more like her. Confident and all knowing.

A few months after such purchase I drove to Yom Kippur morning services at the repurposed church on Franklin street. It was big enough to hold the multitudes who, like me, collided with each other at the beginning of each Hebrew year.

I can’t now remember how the pieces fit together. Did I change from the Ferragamos into something soft and laced? Did I accidentally leave the car unlocked? I do not want to say that I was careless with the pristine pair which came in the same kind of red box which housed my mother’s collection, even when they rested on the glide out shelves in her meticulously ordered dressing room. The one with a wall of closets and drawers looking directly across from my father’s identical set.

What happened was my Ferragamos disappeared. They were taken from my car, at least that is what I recall. The point is, they were gone. And I never saw them again. I had only worn them a few times, saving the smooth and spotless leather for any occasion I deemed special.

I was shocked. Looking everywhere as I repeated my steps, tracing my trajectory before, after and during the long, tedious afternoon. Of fasting. Of some semblance of repenting. Though not of the Catholic variety. I tried not to feel that I had abandoned my mother.

I think she was still alive then. Now I have only memories and a few of those empty, red Ferragamo boxes collecting dust. But I will not abandon them. It is hard to believe her shoes fit inside such small boxes. My Blundstones, Hokas and Birkenstocks surely would not. If I still had the missing pair, I am sure they would collide with mine and perhaps be overcome by heavy soles and chunky height. And my size 8.

I detoured from my own preferences to taste my mother. So we could share the weather, our inner weather as represented by an expensive, not very useful pair of shoes. Sold to me by sales people more reminiscent of the private shoppers Mom favored at Saks Fifth Avenue on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

I can picture those shoes, the missing ones, even now so many years later. I can see Mom’s tiny feet and her pedicure. Only clear nail polish. Nothing to draw too much attention. When I so indulge, of course there is color.