In high school, I only wore Vans. Vans were my shoe of choice; if it was a sneaker and I wore it, it was a Vans pair of sneakers.
In college, I transitioned to the Adidas Samba at the recommendation of a friend of mine. We bonded over our Sambas, which is an odd thing to say about a pair of shoes, but they were comfortable and (to us, at least) very stylish.
I went through several pairs of Sambas before I switched over to Pumas, on a whim, one day in the fall of my senior year. The next day I discovered that my friend had done the same thing, and once more we bonded over how our new shoes made us feel like ninjas, like we could at any moment break into a sprint and do daring acts of agility if we needed to suddenly become Spider-Man (we never did).
At my wedding, I and the other men in my and my wife's party all wore Converse. They were gray and trendy and everyone talked about how cool we all looked, in tuxes and Converse. They were less comfortable than my old Sambas, but you don't wear soccer shoes to a wedding; it just isn't done.
I still wear those Converse shoes, because they were part of my wedding, but I'd never worn Converse before then. I used to wear Merrell shoes, at the recommendation of the woman who is now my wife, and I can safely say those were the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn, even if they weren't the most stylish. If you have a chance to try on a pair of Merrells, you won't be sorry.
When I look back on the shoes I've worn, I can't help but associate the changes in footwear with shifts in my life. Your shoes change your relationship to the ground, they affect the way you stand, the way you walk. Everything about you is shaped by your foundation, and your feet are that foundation. It's not a question of style; it's a question of how your shoes change your way of being.
Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if I had never switched to Puma back in that senior year. I wonder what my wedding would have been like if we'd all worn brown leather dress shoes instead of Converse. I wonder what living in the desert of Arizona would be like if I had never developed a taste for flip-flops.
There's another side of this story, a darker side, which is that when I was in high school, whenever I wore out a pair of shoes, my parents gave them to the dogs as chew toys. You could go out into the yard and find half-destroyed Vans buried in the grass, like decomposing shadows of the past.
At my wedding, I and the other men in my and my wife's party all wore Converse. They were gray and trendy and everyone talked about how cool we all looked, in tuxes and Converse. They were less comfortable than my old Sambas, but you don't wear soccer shoes to a wedding; it just isn't done.
I still wear those Converse shoes, because they were part of my wedding, but I'd never worn Converse before then. I used to wear Merrell shoes, at the recommendation of the woman who is now my wife, and I can safely say those were the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn, even if they weren't the most stylish. If you have a chance to try on a pair of Merrells, you won't be sorry.
When I look back on the shoes I've worn, I can't help but associate the changes in footwear with shifts in my life. Your shoes change your relationship to the ground, they affect the way you stand, the way you walk. Everything about you is shaped by your foundation, and your feet are that foundation. It's not a question of style; it's a question of how your shoes change your way of being.
Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if I had never switched to Puma back in that senior year. I wonder what my wedding would have been like if we'd all worn brown leather dress shoes instead of Converse. I wonder what living in the desert of Arizona would be like if I had never developed a taste for flip-flops.
There's another side of this story, a darker side, which is that when I was in high school, whenever I wore out a pair of shoes, my parents gave them to the dogs as chew toys. You could go out into the yard and find half-destroyed Vans buried in the grass, like decomposing shadows of the past.
What shoes do you miss? Was it that first pair of Nike's you got in middle school, or the first pair of real dress shoes you bought for yourself? What are the moments you remember, wearing those shoes? How would those moments have been different if you'd had different footwear?
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