It’s not just about walking and running, it’s a lifestyle. A philosophy. Tread lightly. Connect. Ground, earth. A metaphor for living consciously. As if the wearing of shoes insulates, no, isolates us from the very ground we walk on.
Yesterday I rode my bike to work and left it at the mechanic’s for a service en route, before realising that I’d mixed up my shifts and wasn’t due to start work for another 4 hours. I smiled, hitched my backpack a little higher, removed my cycling shoes and walked 5km home. Smooth slabs preceded well-worn tarmac littered with loose stones, which was followed by a newly surfaced road. A light drizzle cooled my brow, and rivulets of water ran between my toes, soothing the soles of my feet as I made my way up the hill.
Removing the barrier between my feet and the ground, the shoe, I can feel everything. Ok, after a few years of spending more time out of shoes than in them, there are certain things I barely notice anymore when I step on them, but as a rule, I am very aware of what I’m walking on. And I like it. The rough, the smooth, the changing textures as I move from indoors to out, from loose gravel to bare rock, dusty path to grassy verge, sand on the beach and water lapping over my toes. Rugs, tiles, bricks, leaves.
Many years ago, I tried skydiving once or twice. My instructor advised me to remove my socks so I could better feel the wind between my toes. I even shaved my legs for a few years during my time as a triathlete to make my regular massages a little more comfortable, and I loved the extra intimacy with the water whilst swimming.
Aside from the obvious physical sensations that direct contact with the ground, the air and water evoke, I find that there is something else I can’t quite explain nor even fully understand. A connection that goes deeper than the skin. A sense of belonging. That this is how it is meant to be. Shoes are one of many physical barriers that we use to cut ourselves off from our surroundings, but there are also many metaphorical and psychological ones too. Barriers that prevent us from being conscious of our surroundings, prevent us from being truly present.
With shoes, or gloves we are less inclined to be careful where we step, or to be gentle with our touch. Driving a car or sitting in a bus or on a train robs us of the experience of a journey. It becomes merely a displacement from one destination to another; sights reduced to a fleeting glimpse through the window, sounds, scents and textures eliminated completely.
Our individual disconnection, through our tendency to protect ourselves from, well, almost everything, is how we’ve arrived at a species-wide disconnection from the rest of our fellow earthlings. Experiencing the world through the barriers, filters, lenses and plastic packaging of the technological age in which we find ourselves, we’ve forgotten what it really means to be alive. Connection is everything.
I’m throwing off my shoes and dismantling some of my barriers, to alter the nature of my journey. To feel my way along the path with all my senses. To remind myself step by step, that I am a part of, and not apart from, everything.
Stuart Westwood 