Mia Goldberg --  NYU

 

My best friend's 16th birthday was creeping closer, and I was empty handed. Days before, I found myself in her apartment building. I was feeling particularly groggy that morning and unconfident in my baggy sweatpants and unfashionably messy bun. My wispies created a mane around my head and I probably looked like the Cowardly Lion. I shuffled into an overcrowded elevator and pressed the button for the eleventh floor. To avoid awkward eye contact, my eyes darted straight to people’s feet: 14 feet. Not one wearing the same pair of shoes. One little girl tapped her feet to match the tune of a song she was humming. Her muddy, yellow shoes smeared gunck onto the white marble floor. They had princess stickers plastered around the sides. The left shoe was splattered with pink paint and the shoelaces looked as if they were dipped in mud and left out to dry. The shoes seemed like they’ve never had an off day. 

When she skipped out of the elevator and onto the tenth floor she laughed and sprinted to her door. I wondered where those shoes would take her, and how long they’d last until they fell apart. It wasn’t the first time I was obsessed with a pair of shoes and the personality that ran and lived in them. 

I knocked on my friend’s door three times. She appeared at the door and let out a tired grunt. I glimpsed at her bare feet and in that moment, I knew exactly what I would make for her birthday. 

“Uh, I gotta go,” I said and escaped to the mall. I bought white canvas shoes and dashed home. I sprinted up the stairs and into my room and savagely threw open my acrylic paint box and scrambled the colors onto the floor. As I designed each shoe, I pictured the lyrics of our favorite songs by the Rolling Stones, the Rugrats cartoon we watched as kids, and her obsession with dice. I definitely cut it close, but the shoes were ready by the morning of her birthday. 

The shoe box was plastered with memories and a list of all the reasons why she’s special to me. She ripped open the box and found herself staring at her favorite things. At first, I was worried she wouldn’t like them, but she wore them all the time and people at school started asking me to make them a pair.  

I became hooked on making shoes. So much so, that my mom kept finding me up at three in the morning tired but not ready to stop painting. I ended up making 24 pairs of shoes. I imagined the shoes taking people on great adventures and walking them through hard times.  

A year later, and a month before my 17th birthday, I bought myself a pair of blank canvas high tops. Two Saturdays before my birthday, I lined my bedroom floor with craft paper, rewashed all my brushes and organized the paints as if perfectly on the color wheel. I called my six best friends to invite them over. I left a note saying I was out for a run and a movie and that I hoped they would make shoes fit for me.  

When I returned, I could hear them singing Ruby Tuesday up in my room. The shoes were still wet, but my quirks and passions were on my shoes: my backwards yellow and white checkered baseball cap, my obsession with Larry David, the rapper Tyler the Creator, a random saxophone player and my favorite campaign Save The Bees.  

I’ve worn the shoes so often, the soles have molded to my feet. The laces are knotted to the exact place where my foot can slip in easily. I carry my friends with me and leave trails of the person I am everywhere along the way.