Missing My Feet

No, my feet haven't gone missing. I've had no accident or extreme surgery. The title just kind of came to me like that.

As I was walking the other day, in my Nike Run Free Plus shoes, the ones that can catch a twig and hold onto it as seen in the previous post, I realized that I really miss walking and running barefoot.

About a year ago I wrote some about this, about the knee injuries and giving up running when it seemed I couldn't run without re-injuring. Then about the friend who recommended running barefoot, and how I tried it.

I tried it and liked it! Not only could I run without hurting my knee (without my knee even hurting....at all!), but I just relished the sensation of being barefoot outside. The softness of moss, the coolness of grass, the squishiness of mud, the cushion of dust, the splashing of puddles. Even the roughness of bark when I walked along a fallen tree trunk.

I had to stop when the weather got too cold. I tried several times to purchase a pair of Vibram FiveFinger shoes (and always thought I'd blog about them once I got them), but they kept selling out before I could get any.

So I settled for the Nikes and continued running once I got them.

And in the meantime we moved to this new house. And that's part of why I miss going barefoot.

At our old house, I could drive to one of the biggest parks in the city in just a couple of minutes. That's where I'd go, either to the public area or sometimes to the Botanic Garden--and usually in the mornings, no one was around. Or just one or two people, and once we had the conversation about why I was barefoot, they didn't think it odd, so it was fine. One woman, in fact, told me she was friends with a major Memphis runner and that he had begun running barefoot not long before.

From our new house, it takes me ten minutes to get to that park. And because of starting the new job, my morning time is more limited than before, so I just haven't been going there.


There's a wonderful park, pictured above, closer to our new house. It's really beautiful--smaller than the other, but with a lake and an island bird sanctuary. It's lovely. But it's also in the middle of a very nice neighborhood, and people do walk their dogs there each morning, or just walk themselves around the lake. It isn't really crowded, but it isn't as uncrowded as the first park. And I just get the feeling that the people there would look at me funny if I were barefoot.

Besides that, it doesn't have the large stretches of grass that the other one has. Going barefoot on dried magnolia leaves is not as pleasant as being on grass. And because of all the dog-walking at the new park, I end up having to be on the sidewalk a good deal. Which is not painful, despite what you might expect; but neither is it especially pleasant.

So, I'm thinking I'll have to give up either a bit of sleep, or a bit of workout time if I want the true barefoot experience again. I think it's worth the sacrifice, though it's hard to think that when I'm just waking up and it's still darkish.

Now that I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking that yet a third park may be quicker to get to than my old park. It has a golf area that I don't think anyone uses for golf early in the morning, because that woman I met in the park actually put me in touch with her barefoot running friend, and he told me that's where he runs. Hmmmmm. I'll just have to check it out.

Anyway, if you haven't gone barefoot outside for a while, I highly encourage it, before it gets too cold. I have this theory that the soles of our feet are connected pretty directly to our s-o-u-l souls, somehow. Because the barefoot time I had last fall just seemed to do something deep inside that can't be explained simply by nerve endings. It has to do with being connected to the earth, and to childhood, and to life, in a way that shoes just get in the way of.

Do it for your soles. Do it for your soul.