As a young boy, I had a shoe fetish. To cut myself some slack, my shoe thing wasn’t as bad as the crazy sex-fetishist, but getting a new pair of sneakers was so stimulating to me, so exciting, that I could barely contain myself. I would bring the new sneakers home, lock myself in my room, and for hours my hands would examine, like a crazed connoisseur, the unmarked soles—and all the while I’d be tingling madly.
Over the months to come, I would examine the soles, watching them as they degraded over time, their little crevices and swishes and jagged edges reduced to smooth flat rubber.
I guess I was so into it because of the tactile part: I loved the rubber, the feel of it. Why, I don’t know, but I may have been learning how to use my sense of touch, the way we learn what we like to eat by tasting different kinds of food. And I must have loved that bouquet, because I associated it with the tremendous feeling of hope that came with new sneakers—that with this pair I would run faster, have greater adventures, more fun.
Like most kids today, I took my identity from my sneakers, whether, depending on the year, they were Keds, Pumas, Adidas, or Nikes. With my “cool” sneakers, I could face the world. They were both my shield and—if I needed to flee—my means of escape. It is the childhood version of the way twentynothings judge themselves and others by the cars they drive.
But other people didn’t perceive my sneakers the way I did. I vividly remember one time when I was in Grade 5 playing tennis—one-on-one—with the best player in the batch. He was a brutish fellow and he was surprised at how well I played—I was in the honors class, despite all the hours I spent feeling sneakers—and he jockishly complimented me, “Hindi ko alam na ganito ka pala kagaling.”
I was surprised by his surprise. I thought he should have noted before we began playing that I was wearing my special Adidas sneakers with their green and white stripes, and that this should have indicated to him, despite my geek/nerd reputation, that only a good player would have such sneakers. In response to his backhanded compliment, I said, “Hindi mo ba nakita yung sneakers ko?”
He simply looked at me like I was nuts.
Over the months to come, I would examine the soles, watching them as they degraded over time, their little crevices and swishes and jagged edges reduced to smooth flat rubber.
I guess I was so into it because of the tactile part: I loved the rubber, the feel of it. Why, I don’t know, but I may have been learning how to use my sense of touch, the way we learn what we like to eat by tasting different kinds of food. And I must have loved that bouquet, because I associated it with the tremendous feeling of hope that came with new sneakers—that with this pair I would run faster, have greater adventures, more fun.
Like most kids today, I took my identity from my sneakers, whether, depending on the year, they were Keds, Pumas, Adidas, or Nikes. With my “cool” sneakers, I could face the world. They were both my shield and—if I needed to flee—my means of escape. It is the childhood version of the way twentynothings judge themselves and others by the cars they drive.
But other people didn’t perceive my sneakers the way I did. I vividly remember one time when I was in Grade 5 playing tennis—one-on-one—with the best player in the batch. He was a brutish fellow and he was surprised at how well I played—I was in the honors class, despite all the hours I spent feeling sneakers—and he jockishly complimented me, “Hindi ko alam na ganito ka pala kagaling.”
I was surprised by his surprise. I thought he should have noted before we began playing that I was wearing my special Adidas sneakers with their green and white stripes, and that this should have indicated to him, despite my geek/nerd reputation, that only a good player would have such sneakers. In response to his backhanded compliment, I said, “Hindi mo ba nakita yung sneakers ko?”
He simply looked at me like I was nuts.
