Blush Red
I wore cherry red flats and a sleeveless dress with flowers, a scoop neck and a long zipper down the back. A very long zipper. I sewed that dress in Home Economics because in the 1970s girls were caught between two ideas; we could conquer the world and we better know how to sew, cook and clean a home like all good wives and moms. It took me three classes to sew in that damn zipper. I haven't sewn a zipper since. The shoes were shiny patent leather bought at Palais Royal, a Houston department store that's long gone. I really liked the dress and I loved the red shoes. My confidence was high.
The school bus that took me home was filled with neighborhood middle schoolers and most of us had been sitting in class rooms together since kindergarten. On the day I wore my home made dress and red shoes, in the last row of the bus, was Craig, the new boy in the neighborhood. He had leap frogged from new kid to popular kid in the 2 weeks since school had started. I had a huge heart skipping crush on him.
On that humid September afternoon, after the bus had dropped us off, our neighborhood gang stood at the end of the street kicking the pile of gravel that always ended up smack dab in the middle of the intersection. The all day procession of neighbors coming and going, turning left and turning right made little rocks fly out from under the white wall tires and those little rocks always ended up right back in the middle of our Queensbury Lane and the tree lined cross street that I think was named Reidel. The letters on the street sign aren't really important but spending a moment to try and remember the name is my way of procrastinating and avoiding the soul crushing sentence that I will type next...Craig, in front of everyone, told me my shoes looked like "mom shoes." The group of neighborhood kids, my allies, the same group that I raced bikes with and played a summer long game of baseball with, all agreed.
My 12 year old cheeks were as scarlet as my cherry red flats. How comedic and cruel that as we get older we have a hard time remembering where we left anything 20 minutes ago but in a split second we can name any one of hundreds of childhood incidents that made us feel taunted or unworthy. I imagine the back lit x ray of our hearts with patches, band aids and jagged scars.
We remember the whens and hows of each and every mark. I know that having a boy publicly ridicule your patent leather flats isn't the end of the world. But, when you're 12 and the self conscious kind of girl who leaves the house every morning with eyeglasses on and then stuffs them in her purse before the first class of the day and then puts them back on right before her parents get home from work...well, you get the idea. No wonder my eyes never got any better. But my heart did. Only to be gashed and smashed countless more times over thoughtless remarks and acts that young girls and boys don't deal with very well. There was the same brutish but popular girl that had been my emotional nemesis from kindergarten until the final rehearsal for high school graduation, there were the times I did ridiculously stupid things that stemmed from insecurity, and there were even times that middle school and high school teachers behaved as badly as the students they disciplined.
And then I had my own children. And I wanted to save them from the bad little seeds in preschool, the bullies in elementary school, the shovers and the hitters in middle school, and the word snipers in high school. I can hear your thoughts. "It's not possible." And you're half right.
Insensitive people aren't going away. I knew I couldn't protect my children from every mean kid but I could give them a tough, impenetrable shell. I could remind them, day after day, that they are unique, they are worthy and they are loved. I could prepare them for the inevitable cruel barb, the jokes at their expense, and the certainty that zippers will be left unzipped, pants will rip, and they will trip not just up stairs and down and on uneven sidewalks but trip up and over life. It required being present in their lives. Very present. It required having conversations that, quite frankly, wore me out on some days and filled me with pride on others. It required face to face conversation and, for the times that I was thousands of miles away, daily phone time.
My children are now 20 and 22. My daughter has always followed her heart in fashion and life and she thinks the people who have been less than kind must be dealing with their own problems. My son has never been a follower and has never cared much for what others think of him. Still waters run deep? That's him. They have issues and problems and the occasional crisis but they refrain from taking their problems out on other people. (Family is sometimes excluded and that's perfectly normal.) Most of all, they are kind people. They have huge hopes and dreams but, as their mom, if all they ended up being was kind to others and happy with their life, I would be immensely proud.
"The red shoes dance her out into the street, they dance her over the mountains and valleys, through fields and forests, through night and day."
- The Red Shoes 1948
Life is too short not to wear red shoes. Oh, if I had known then all that I know now...well, I wouldn't be the person I am today. Unfortunate incidents, good people and bad who have wandered into and out of my life, and a long list of my own mistakes have led me to this grateful moment.
