Shopping Barefoot

Shopping from store to store in bare feet–browsing, standing in check-out lines, carrying shopping bags down the way—was a particularly fun and audacious thing to do on a summer day. Some of my Facebook friends are former classmates who liked to go that way to our small downtown. During the early 1980s, I even saw a cheerful, shoeless woman in high-class Westport, CT, strolling toward the town’s boutiques.

During that time period, I visited another coastal town for a summer craft fair. My fisherman sandals lay on the floorboard, and I regretted not wearing a lighter pair. So I left them behind. With my touristy camera over my shoulder, I sighed with relief as my heels made gentle thuds upon the warm sidewalks. Not unimportantly, my mind and heart were weighed down with a situation that I couldn’t yet fix, and so this simple omission of shoes was a temporary but meaningful respite from my sad emotions.

I spent a pleasant hour or so exploring the booths and shops. What a nice summertime memory, even if the walking was a little risky. I wasn’t the only eccentric. On this trip or another one, I chuckled to see a barefoot young man with his arms around two barefoot young women as they stood at a food counter at the fair.

During a visit to a southwestern community, while my wife Beth was at a conference in town, I looked forward to visiting a community’s artsy shopping district. I thought that visit to the coastal craft fair, about eight years earlier. This seemed like a nice opportunity for another exercise in pleasant silliness—that once-a-summer way to renew a sense of well-being.

Parking my car, I left my sandals inside, stepped to the street and sidewalk with a happy sigh, fed the meter, and made my way with committed feet to my first destination, a bookstore (where I bought an Annie Dillard book that I still have). Then, as I watched my toes step along the walkway, I visited other stores up and down the block for an unhurried time. They were good boutiques, offering crafts, art, jewelry, books, environment related items, and other merchandise. I had excellent luck. The textures of cool floors alternating with the sidewalk—warm like a back porch—felt delightful.

No one seemed to mind. One clerk in a rock and gem shop who gave me a strange look as I strolled around the beautiful displays (I should’ve asked first), but I did make a purchase. Toward the end of my visit, I walked down the sidewalk with my shopping bags and paused at a window display of a clothes and accessories store. A clerk, standing outside, invited me to check out their sales! So I tiptoed in and, strolling among several shoppers, I found the day’s last treasure, a purse for Beth.