Joan Juliet Buck: 'I Was Born With Eleven Toes'

My heart goes out to you. I can’t imagine the pain - ouch. I wasn’t born with 11 toes, but my second and third toe group together in a funny way, kind of an advance party for blisters. My brother-in-law, upon inspecting his newborn son who inherited those funny caterpillar conjoined toes, was appalled and sure it was a birth defect. I assured him that in our family it was quite normal. My husband, who is Swedish, has beautiful feet - long and slim with elegant toes, and fortunately my sons inherited those.

Julia, there’s a theory that 12 fingers and 12 toes are the next step in evolution. And there was a legend that Marilyn Monroe had 12 toes. So maybe you’re just the next link.

We never saw my mother as a rebel, but it turned out that was. Her mother- our grandmother- was the Imelda Marcos (remember her?!) of western Pennsylvania. She had beautiful shoes for every outfit- handcrafted of incredibly soft leathers and silks, always classically, subtlely stylish. She had worn heels for so long- even her slippers had heels!- that she could no longer walk comfortably barefoot because her achilles tendons had shortened over the years.

But, with the obtuseness of the young, I did not realize that my apparantly utterly conventional, conflict-averse mother was in fact a rebel of the highest order! In our house we were all barefoot except when absolutely necessary- the depths of winter, going to school, that sort of thing. My mother kept a pair of sandals under the drivers seat of the car because she would often get to the shops only to find that she couldn’t go in because she was barefoot- so she would pull out her handy pair of sandals. Inside the front door of our house- in a very germanic or japanese way- there was (and still is) a row of shoes- everybody kicks the shoes off as soon as they come in the door. My mother changed many things about her life when she left home, and it started with her shoes.

Ever talked to anyone about surgery?

My sister was granted a darling set of delicate, supremely sweet size 6’s. While I shot out with duckling 8.5’s ever-threatening to bridge the gap to a 9 fringed with 10 gangly toes, each at odds with its closest neighbor. I’ll never forgive the nurse in labor and delivery for advising that I had especially large feet for such a short woman =/

I am truly sorry for your pain. I wish that I knew what to tell you. I hope that some day soon you will find some way of fixing the problem. Take care…….and no matter what you have very special friends here…………Love you Carol

I have struggled with pretty shoes and pain all of my life! Finally I have come to a point where comfort reigns supreme. Thanks for sharing your story.

I can’t stand man-made materials in my shoes. I can’t stand to wear heels, even low ones. I look for shoes that have no heels at all. Most of my life has been spent barefoot. Shoes are something I wear when I go outside, and take off whenever I can. I have always loved my feet. My feet are for feeling the earth. My feet love feeling the earth, feeling my feet.

Once I had a pair of Justin Cowboy boots and they always felt great. And I loved them with all my heart. They were the only ‘heels’ that ever felt good. As long as my Justines lasted, I wore them dancing. When they broke down, I wore flats.

Sometimes I long to love heels. They are one of life’s great mysteries to me. I love to look at them in store windows. I watch women walk in them and I am astonished at the power these little torture chambers possess. I am astonished that women wear them, on a daily basis. Sometimes I feel these women are strange, beautiful, foreign creatures that possess some magical power that allows them to propel themselves precariously perched on tiny stilts. But then I put them on and I think, we women are crazy.

Don’t even get me started on socks.

I love shoes almost as much as I love chocolate! I am currently on a replacement program…my husband made me promise that for every pair I bought I’d get rid of a pair. Fortunately, since I haven’t changed sizes since I was a teen (both clothes & shoes) I have all of my shoes since college. So I bought that cute polka-dotted pair of platforms last week and out went those old loafers I wore in college. Great trade. I have a section in my closet with cubbies for all of my shoes, stored in their boxes. I remember where I bought each and every pair. I think I’m plateaued at around 100. Change my shoes, change my mood!

Oh Joan, I felt your embarrassment on the yacht- even though no one else would care, feeling self-conscious is such a stressor.

Ok, here’s my vacation humiliation: While on a plane with my husband to Hawaii, I fell sound asleep. When I awoke I realized that I had soaked through my entire outfit - if you know what I mean. I had the window seat, and was incontrovertibly trapped. (I had recently been informed that I had a bleeding disorder called von-Willebrans. It is a deficiency in the protein factor for clotting, and it is suspected that up to 3% of the population has it, most unknowingly.) The frustration is that it is intermittent: the clotting factor is produced in the body while exercising, but not under relaxed circumstances, like sleep, hence the clotting catastrophe. And of course a gentleman was sitting in the aisle seat next to my husband.

In a contortionist move right out of Cirque du Solei, I wrapped a blanket around my waist while sitting in my seat, then excused and squeezed myself past our aisle mate, and spent the next half hour in the bathroom washing my clothes. I rewrapped the blanket around my drenching wet skirt and shuffled back to my seat. Four hours later I was nearly dry when our friends met us at the Maui airport. Nothing quite like humiliation in flight.

The Republicans I know are all highly proficient at massage.