My Feet

Author: a Lyr

Ever since i was a little girl my mother took the utmost pride in having borne a child with feet so lovely as mine.

She absolutely adored to remind anyone in view of my feet that the heavens had bestowed upon her child and hers alone a pair of feet with an elegance and grace so refined as to rival those of the frolicking demigods in her Maxfield Parrish prints. At every opportunity she would take one of my feet into her hands and display its virtues, hardly stopping to breathe as she lavished praise upon the soft, supple and blemishless pale olive skin, perfectly proportioned arches, and the delicate shapes of each of my little toes. I still remember the way she would direct me to lie down on my back as she cupped my heel in one hand, with the other caressing the slender length of my sole. She liked to trace the tips of each of my small toes, exclaiming at their coquettish beauty, then run her fingers across the profile of my metatarsals to the tune of the obligatory oohs and ahs of her companions. i felt an overwhelming embarrassment when she let me go and tried to put on my socks as inconspicuously as possible.

Soon enough, I was of an age to join a ballet troupe, an idea which i privately despised but which my dear mother would not hear a word against. Perhaps one or two of you have been made to dance in pointe shoes. It hurts. Especially at the tender age of eight when one’s delicate toes have not yet had to suffer the ways of the world.

Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday she brought me to that wretched studio where a fat old instructor liked to make use of a yardstick in demonstrating just how easy it is to forget to tuck your tummy, stand up straight and and hold your legs up high in an arabesque. Most of the girls acclimated to it sooner or later. But my feet simply were not cut out for such vigourous rigour. After every class I would come home close to tears, carefully unwrap the pointe shoes and evidence the tortures of the class to my mother with tender and blistering feet, only for her scoff at my complaints and spend the remaining hours of the evening applying ointments and creams to my swollen arches and toes.

Fortunately, this lasted only a couple of years before I had the good sense to move in with my father.