New Shoes

 When I was little the end of August was marked with that dreaded trip to the shoe shop. Back to school meant new shoes and I hated it. I liked school but the anxiety would build up towards the end of August, knowing that shopping needed to be done. 

“Can’t we just go in the bookshop? What about Smiths? I’m sure I need new pens.” 

After. It was always, after. 

Supposedly, women like shoe shopping but they probably didn’t have my back to school footwear experience.

The shop was always really busy. There were lots of people having lots of conversations that were impossible to listen to all at once. You had to take a ticket and wait your turn.

“Sixty six,” the assistant shouted, as she manually changed the number. We looked at the salmon-pink triangle in Mum’s hand. 

“Oh, seventy nine!”  My dad could hear the collective sigh from work, ten miles away. None of us were good at waiting. Why we never thought to bring a book, still baffles me but I never remembered, even when getting my own kids shoes. 

Eventually it would be my turn. They would measure and suck their teeth. 

“Gosh, that’s narrow. Triple A.”

Then there would be an act of visibly pulling themselves together and slapping the game face back on. Huge exaggerated smile.

“So, have you looked at this year’s range? What shoe would you like?”

For a few years, I fell into this trap, choosing a shiny black pair with a butterfly on the clasp, or daring to be different with a blue pair with a strap across the top. However, it wasn’t long before I learnt and Mum would just snap back, “Why don’t you just bring us the shoe you have in her size.”

Because it usually was just one shoe. And it was the ugliest shoe in the shop. Also, it wasn’t really the right size. 

I would leave the shop with a pair of shoes I hated, that gave mean kids even more of an excuse to laugh at me, that rubbed the back of my heels to bloody blisters or cramped my toes to the point of needing painful surgery in my twenties. We would then rush to the proper (JH) Clarkes shop for sanctuary.

This was a big shop on the corner with a blue sign and was the best shop in the whole wide world.  Mum would stay downstairs and collect art supplies and I would go upstairs where the books, pencils and notepads lived. I would grab a fistful of pencils and breathe in deeply, sucking the comforting soft graphite smell into my nose. I always liked writing with a pencil. Less permanent, easier to erase, not so much commitment. This was in the days when you could choose the softness of lead you used. 2B has always been my favourite as it has the best smell and as you write you can quote Shakespeare.

“2B or not 2B, that is the question. Will I keep this sentence or rub it out?”

It doesn’t matter how old you get, or how many years you’ve been teaching, the back to school anxiety is real. Teachers will be struggling to sleep well. They might dream about going to get new shoes, standing in front of 30 children, naked and unable to speak, clocks melting while sitting exams in a Dali-esque  fashion. They may take comfort in their stationary, checking their pens, marking up a new notebook or sniffing their pencils. 

I’m sure children and parents have their own anxieties and the wonderful thing is that it’s all misplaced. It’s going to be fine. Six weeks of no school won’t mean I’ve forgotten how to teach (I hope)

I just need to go and get myself some new shoes.