Your applause and hoop-hollars are very welcome.
Thank you.
Tonight we were at our karate home and I was paired with a young girl. She was precious and funny and I so admired her personality.
We were excavating our assignments like semi-professionals when Sensei Baldwin gave us the directive to put our feet in one another's face...give or take. It was actually an exercise, but all I could think of were how incredibly nasty my feet currently looked.
The bottoms, after wearing sandals for too many days in a row, were blackened and rough. They have that summer flair of being prickly and sticking to certain blankets and clothing material.
I HATE THIS FEELING. It truly grosses me out. Plus, it looks terrible.
Additionally, on my feet was chipped, pale-pink nail polish and above my feet, hairy legs.
I was all-together a mess.
I tried to laugh it off.
My partner, all 9-years of innocence and preciousness, may not have even noticed, but in my mind
I thought I would scar her. She would forever after have this imagine of what not to become as a grown woman.
Dirty. Hairy. Nasty.
I am reading Beth Moore's Audacious. In it, she mentions a photo prop she and some of her people took and how one guy had to take his shoes off and wear sandals. By removing his shoes, she became aware of how hideous his toes were. Of he and others, she writes:
Clearly not one of those men had ever had a pedicure.
One was such an avid runner that
what few toenails he had left were black.
There is a movie called, Center Stage and I remember watching it (or was it Save the Last Dance?) and seeing the bloodied toes of the disciplined ballerinas.
I wanted to be one, a disciplined ballerina. The bloodied toes, seemed an admirable trait to be able to declare myself a prima ballerina, just as I thought, for a split moment, how nice it would be to have black toenails if it meant I could honestly call myself an avid runner.
In either and both scenarios, I realize, it is the hobby of the person to which the toes are a casualty. While walking around barefoot throughout the establishment which is our Dojo, I have just had to come to grasp that dirty feet are my casualty. My bragging rights.
But this doesn't mean that I can just throw in the towel. No, no. As a matter of fact, I just finished painting my toes a great shade of teal and I did this after I scrubbed them in the shower.
You're welcome for all the info. TMI you say? Yeah, maybe.
I suppose I just needed to get this off my mind. It really isn't of great significance. I have no sermon with which to tie to this. I simply had enough time to hyper-focus on my feet and out of it came blood and black, and acceptance.
100 years ago when I was a freshman in college, I joined the dance team. With a dear friend of mine named Lizzy, we worked diligently on our try-out routine (to Reliant K's Softer to Me -it was one dance to rule them all) and -graciously- we each made the team. (My room-mate, Julia, did NOT work diligently on her routine and she did NOT even try out but still made the team...but I try not to read too far into that. And I love her, so, whatever.) ANY WAY, one of the sophomores set a rule in place that our toe nails needed to look great AT AL TIMES. We were, at that point, representing the dance team, and our toe nails being manicured was of utmost importance. All that to say, these 100 years later, I still think of of the girl who made the pedicure rule and wonder if her feet are perfectly pedicured today. She has two and I have three sons, so I doubt that is really realistic for either of us, but, who knows? I wonder if she prioritizes her piggies today like she did back them...when her responsibilities seemed to quaint and easy. hehe...
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