A Sense of Occasion 

Several years ago I read an article in the Southwest airline magazine Spirit, about going barefoot. The author is Kimberly Garza, assistant editor of the magazine. (The April 2009 article used to be linked here: spiritmag.com/click_this/article/go_barefoot/ ) On the same theme, I also like John Updike’s essay “Going Barefoot” in his collection Hugging the Shore (Knopf, 1983), in which he delights in remembered walks to the post office, the stores, and the parks in Martha’s Vineyard, and Barbara Hollman’s essay about bare feet in her 1995 book Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences (William Morrow).

Garza lightheartedly calls herself a “foot nudist.” She notes that many people consider bare feet “icky” and impolite. Yet our feet are more sensitive than our fingers, so we’ve all kinds of possibilities of tactile memories through walking: a sidewalk, summer grass, the fur of a pet, the texture of the curb on which you try to balance, a soft carpet.

Garza talked about folks who didn’t “get it”—why a person feels such peace and satisfaction simply by removing shoes. But some folks do. I know people who have to have their toes in the beach sand, at least once a year, in order to have a regular sense of well-being, and I know other people who can't wait to get outdoors onto their porch and lawn in springtime. As someone who was a teenager in the 1970s (a bit of an "old hippy"), I've also enjoyed other textures, and I’m grateful that I knew them: the warm concrete outside the ice cream place; the cool linoleum as I navigated my squeaky cart through grocery aisles; the mulch spread along a hiking trail; the breeze and bike pedal as I rode my bike; and other cheerful moments.

Nearly all of these moments were like my visit to the Lincoln farm. I was at home or in my car, with my sandals kicked off for the nice weather. I wanted to go somewhere, and probably 99.9% of the time I slipped them back on. But every once in a while, I thought, “Oh heck, why bother?”, and I ran my errand barefooted.

When I took shoeless neighborhood walks, I never carried sandals along but I watched out for things like acorns and pebbles.

As I got into my thirties and beyond, I liked to go out barefoot as an once-in-a-while summer treat, a peaceful way—like my beach-loving friends—to renew a sense of well-being.

All in all, the simple feelings of fun and peace overcame the silliness and, of course, the mild inappropriateness of having no shoes on. The motions of walking—the way the soles present themselves behind you, the pushing off of the toes and their emphatic landing—feel so cool and light. Imagine being shoeless through your house, making that gentle thud as you step, and you feel so relaxed. Then imagine being out somewhere with nothing on your feet, but you don’t feel embarrassed or squeamish about it. You feel cheerful and mischievous, “full of yourself” in a good way.

To think about it one more way: it’s a little like the host or hostess of a casual house party (usually the hostess) who, dressed and barefoot, is ready for the party. Padding in my bare feet down the sidewalk or through the grocery or the video store or wherever, I created a cheerful, special occasion---which was also lovely if I was feeling blue or distressed.

I often met likeminded folks who “get it”, as I write in some of the anecdotes below, and it’s a fun encounter—like chatting with another fan of Monty Python or The Big Lebowski.  But instead of saying things like, “She turned me into a newt” or “Yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man,” they say things like, “I love going barefooted, too!” or “I always go barefoot!”