I am fascinated with the bones in the foot, especially now when the metatarsus of my left foot seems to have developed a life of its own. For example, bones fracture. Since November of last year I've had metatarsals 3 and 4 both break. I've spent months in various kinds of casts. Knobs of bone seem to be developing on the sides of the foot. What is this?
Of course, I am older than Kristin---by nearly four decades---but I still want my feet to work. I don't stand, or walk, or run as much as a younger person would; I try to be kind to my skeletal system. I realize that bones age and get tired, but I take calcium and vitamins. I've not quit; why should they?
I coddle my feet. I wear Birkenstocks and just invested in a pair of New Balance 927s for walking. Not only are these shoe prices high. If you have any fashion radar, you see that you have to revise your entire wardrobe to accomodate this large boxy shape at the base of the silhouette. Or, not look down; or cover the lower portion of a full length mirror. The "line" just doesn't work.
Then, there's therapy; I get a foot massage from Tom at a manicure/pedicure place in LA. But the nail and polish business is less important to me than the "reflexology" therapy he does on my feet and legs. Whatever the scientific value of my "qi" or meridians, my step is light after an hour with Tom. This business is an Asian speciality, of course, and in Los Angeles, practically every block you drive has at least one nail salon. It's one of the growth industries of the last decade and the particular province of Asian immigrants.
Tom and his sister Nancy are from Vietnam; they run a little shop in one of the countless strip malls lining the major arteries in Torrance. They are open 7 days a week, from 9 am to 9 pm. Decor is minimal and the tv has no cable. A little shrine sits on the floor---an indecipherable Asian baroque design; sometimes with some kind of sweet roll offering in celophane. I restrain the impulse to genuflect. How they got here is sketchy: she'd escaped in a boat and watched people drown; then waited in an internment camp.This must have been several decades ago, maybe during the 1970s. Now she sends letters back to family in Vietnam, but not too often. I overheard this history in the most chatty encounter I'd observed in the three or four years I've gone there. Tom and Nancy do not talk much; their English suffices for business. Once in surprisingly expansive moment Tom confided to me that his daughter was applying to medical school and needing to re-take entrance exam.
But the main thing is that Tom understands my feet and in particular what's going on as my left foot ages and stress fractures occur. It touches me that he examines my foot with such understanding and compassion. He slowly nods his head when he takes my left foot in his capable hands and carefully probes its strengths and weaknesses. Gently tests its flexibility. Presses points in the sole and behind the knee. I am comforted.
Toward the end of an hour, after all therapy, he applies the polish: "Million Dollars Red." It's a bright, true red; makes me think of Marilyn Monroe. Who wants subtlety in southern California? For several weeks now, my feet will feel young again. That is, to say, I won't feel them at all. Some yoga classes and regular walking in those 927s will improve my attitude toward my phalangial extremities. So much of my life has been done on foot---the long blocks of Vienna suburbs and the cobblestones of Cracow, traipsing from campus to the edge of town in grad school, childhood wandering northern California hillsides from bus stop to home. Whatever the need, if I could walk it, I was OK. If I got tired, I could sit and rest. Legs and feet recovered. Walking has been my measure of life. Maybe only street people gauge their lives that way now. I wish them and their feet well.
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