Yesterday for the first time, I was stopped by a stranger while walking around barefoot. I was just on my own block, having just done laundry and grabbed a slice a pizza, when a car pulled up at the corner. The woman in the car looked very concerned, bundled up against the winter weather.
She said, "Where are your shoes?"
I casually said, "I usually don't wear any," and I continued walking. She followed me in the car.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, thanks, I'm fine," I replied. "I just don't like shoes." This made no sense to her at all.
"Can we get you anything? Are you sure you're okay?" She was leaning out of the car window now, driving very slowly as her family inside looked on.
"No, I'm good, thanks! I just don't like shoes." This still made no sense. She looked as if I'd answered in Klingon and couldn't make out what I was saying. Still, I just walked on, and she slowly drove off. I wonder what the conversation in that car was afterwards.
I'm not as naive as some of my friends think, and I know that walking around unshod in NYC is an odd thing. Still, I've been lucky in that it's mostly treated with an amused smile, or an attempt at discretion while they point or look. I've really been getting to the point where I don't notice it as much, and when some one makes a big deal, I'm a little caught off guard.
I was going to post a bunch of reasons why I've been going barefoot, but there's whole online communities discussing that, and I don't need to rehash that all here. It just feels right.
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