what's lost is what remains

my earliest memories of my feet are of my velcro sneakers. they were white and small. and the velcro straps were plastic and baroque: they featured spiderman streaking through the air, his face the most visible part of his person. (on second thought, it was more like whisking; he wasn't actually streaking. needless to say, this image would be somewhat inappropriate for pre-adolescents.) but so one day I came home from school, and they were gone.

it's true: I used to fear touching the ground with bare feet. I remember walking the beach with my family, my parents taking the lead, my brother and I following. they urged me to lose the shoes or to at least discard the socks. I refused. I remember using a towel decorated with sunflowers to cart myself across the sand, as if it was some sort of dogsled propelled forward by my shuffling feet. I remember meeting the rising tide and watching my parents lope through the river in the sand. I remember stopping in front of the water as if waiting for orders, waiting for a cue, waiting.

I remember how my spiderman sneakers barely survived the risen ocean, how they embodied the phrase sopping wet.

they had been delivered to the town dump. I pitched a fit and my parents told me I should cope: trust us, you'll be fine. they were right. but at the time, getting over it wasn't so simple. my spiderman sneakers, the mainstay and treasure of my day-to-day experience, had been doomed to becoming lost forever, to no longer being an extension of that which they had attached themselves to in all their time -- me. and as the saying goes: with time you heal. but you still remember it -- the commotion and the chaos...the tumble...the water in the sand.