Please Remove Your Shoes

The first time I was asked to do this, outside of a doctor's office, was in the house of a friend I hadn't seen in decades. We had played together as children during the years my parents and I spent in Ecuador. Now she was married to an Englishman and living near Philadelphia, and I was going to spend Thanksgiving with them.

This being the 1980s, I had dressed for the occasion: rayon dress with significant shoulder pads, and color-coordinated shoes and panty hose, to give a maximum effect of height and slimness.

I had barely made it through the door, barely taken in the fact that the diminutive 12-year-old had grown a couple of inches and turned into a teensy woman, when I was directed to take off my shoes (my beautiful barely-there-very-high-heeled shoes)...and was handed a pair of snowshoe-like white slippers to replace them.

They might as well have asked me to take off my dress and sit on the sofa in my slip. Without my shoes I felt utterly vulnerable and clumsy, and every time I glanced down at those white slippers I felt like a housewife ( in the negative sense, god forgive me) caught with her hair in curlers.

My hosts were generous and kind, but I never did relax in their house. Their floors looked elegant, but I didn't, and guess which I cared more about?

Here in Vermont, where unpaved roads and driveways mean that the great outdoors often trails indoors, I have friends who, winter or summer, the minute they step into my house take off their footgear. "Please, there's no need!" I assure them. But they insist.

I can deal with optional shoe removal. Compulsory shoe removal, on the other hand, makes me nuts. I build my outfits from the feet up: footwear to legwear to top, so if you tell me to remove my shoes, the whole thing topples.

I went to a party recently, an all-female potluck followed by dancing (what the ancient Greeks used to call a Bacchanal). I showed up in my best pair of boots, tights, and a dress, only to be greeted by a sign directing me to take off my shoes. I complied, and entered the living room feeling dowdy in a skirt that, without the height of the boots, seemed to drag me down. I skated around the floor in my tights, feeling the cold seep up through the soles of my feet. But the worst was yet to come. After dinner, which I ate with my toes curled around the chair rung, the dancing began.

Have you ever tried to dance on a slick wooden floor, in stocking feet? Pas possible! When you dance, your shoes are supposed to help you grip the floor, not skate over it--hence the suede soles on ballroom dancing shoes. I did a few gyrations in my tights--the thought of runs and splinters ever present in my mind--and then withdrew, feeling miffed and missing my armor.

To me, asking guests to remove their shoes is like asking them to help wash the dishes. Human gatherings inevitably produce mess: tracked-in dirt, dirty dishes, stained table cloths. If one invites friends over for a meal, the pleasure offered is not just in the food, but in the freedom from responsibility for the ensuing mess.

So to my friends I say: track mud onto my floors, dirty my dishes, stain my napkins ad libitum! Think nothing of it: you're a guest in my house. And I'll do the same, when I'm invited to yours.

Vermont Footwear

I remember when we were house hunting in Vermont being amazed at the piles of boots in people's mud rooms and closets: tall boots, short boots, rubber boots and leather boots, as well as clogs of all descriptions. In my pre-Vermont days, I never saw the need for more than a couple of pairs of boots—one black, one brown, high-heeled of course, to go with whatever outfit I was wearing. And a third pair for hiking. As for clogs, I thought they were something you wore for folk dancing.

Now that we have been in Vermont almost five years, our house, garage, and barn are littered with various kinds of specialized foot gear. Let me take you on a tour, starting with the barn. In the milking room there is a pair of blue rubber clogs that I slip on every day when I go into the goat or chicken rooms. Their raison d'etre is to keep me from tracking hay and manure back into the house. Next to them there is a pair of tall rubber boots, the kind you see real farmers wearing. I keep them there in case I have to venture into the goat yard in mud season. Before putting them on, I always shake them upside down to get rid of any critters that may be hibernating there.

In the garage there is an old pair of Crocs—the kind without any holes—that I use to walk the dogs and to garden in when the ground is wet but not overly muddy or slushy. There is also an old pair of running shoes that I wear exclusively to my herding lessons with Wolfie. The soles are so encrusted with sheep manure that I'll never be able to use those shoes for anything else.

Come into the house. Just inside the back door, in winter, you will find a plastic tray with my serious cold weather boots defrosting on it. They are a pain to put on and take off, but I could trek to the North Pole in them and my feet would stay warm. I have snapped some gizmos onto the soles to keep me upright on the ice. On the floor of the entrance closet (the one by the front door that nobody ever uses) live my hiking boots.

Proceed up the stairs and look in the bedroom closet. Here is another pair of Crocs, this one with holes, that I wear indoors and, if the weather is clement, outdoors as well. Note the assortment of suede clogs which I reserve for fairly dressy (at least by Vermont standards) occasions. A couple of pairs of high-heeled shoes, forlorn reminders of days gone by, gather dust on the shelf.

On the floor there are more boots. These are my “dress” boots, one pair black, one pair brown, though with substantial rather than sexy heels because you never know what kind of terrain you'll have to cross on your way to the party. Plus two pairs of regular walking-around boots.

Did I mention the snow shoes hanging in the garage?

I would say that, at least from the standpoint of footwear, I am on my way to becoming a real Vermonter. But I am lacking in one respect: around here, when people come to your house, not only do they come to the back door, but they immediately take off their shoes...to reveal some of the most exotic, imaginative, baroque socks I have ever seen. When I take off my boots, alas, nothing dramatic or humorous greets the eye. My chaussettes don't advertise my love for the German Shepherd breed or express my political convictions—they are a boring, solid, flatlander beige or black. I need to do something about that before the cold weather sets in.