Feeling it in my feet

Feet are interesting.

When I was growing up, my parents' house was always under renovation. I remember a period where we didn't have a kitchen floor, and my sister, brother and I would walk across planks to get to our bedrooms.

One of the big projects was refinishing the dining room's maple flooring. The wood was decent enough, but had rough patches every so often that would bite the bottom of your foot if you shuffled them like I do. I started walking on the balls of my feet when I was barefoot in the house, just to avoid the splinters.

I hated being barefoot. My feet were incredibly sensitive-- maybe because I always wore shoes. They were so ticklish that even I couldn't touch them. Forget romantic foot rubs. I'd squirm until my heels met my suitor's face, and that just ain't sexy.

When I started to learn bellydance, I tried all manner of foot coverings. I had half-socks made from felt and stockings; I had crocheted ones from a friend; I had leather lyrical half-sandals that made me feel like a "real dancer." None of them helped; without my feet on the floor, I couldn't feel where I was supposed to be. Over time, I built up the inevitable callouses on the balls of my feet that would allow me to spin quickly in place, even on the carpeted studio where I took classes. My feet stopped being so sensitive and started being tools. Tools need to be maintained, not locked up in a box.

My feet did other things, too. When I was a teenager, I would do a yearly sweep of my closet to weed out junk I didn't need anymore. It was always hard to think objectively about my stuff. "Oh, this is the dress I got to be in that play. Totally not my style, but it's got MEMORIES attached to it!" At some point I realized I needed to try things on to check the fit, so I stripped down to my undies and bare feet. I tried to be very honest with myself-- would I ever actually wear this or that? And I found that I would get my answer through my bare feet. If an item wasn't me, wasn't useful, wasn't worth keeping, I'd feel off-balance. My weight would shift to the balls of my feet, like I was leaning out toward the hope of this item being useful. If the item WAS a keeper, my feet would feel... different. I'd feel centered and rooted and calm. It was like my feet weren't distracted by all the crap my brain was churning up. They knew what was right.

I called it "feeling it in my feet." It still works, and now I apply the theory to a lot of what I do. If I'm dancing and feel off balance, I go back to my feet. If I have an idea that I'm not sure about, I can always sort it out when I take the shoes off and find my center. I've started being more honest with myself, and I swear it's because I took off my damned shoes.

So this blog title-- which took me a while to think up-- is really about finding my center and finding myself. I try not to get to hippy/squishy with my writing. This isn't going to be a blog about yoga and deep breathing and eating crunchy raw foods. It'll be about me trying to try out all the crazy junk I think up, all while trying to be centered and balanced. I love dancing to bizarre songs. I'm learning to hoop dance and would like to spin poi. At some point there will probably be an entry about accidentally setting myself on fire.

And all of it will be done barefoot.