1. The Loyalty of Toes
You need to fall, and more than once, before you learn to fly.
Do the words fail me, or do I fail the words?
Words are strange beings, for they are certainly “beings” with their peculiar moods and caprices.
If toes are the fingers of the foot, why do we call them “toes” and not “fingers”?
And why are the fingers not the toes of the hands if the opposite holds true?
In Russian, there is only one word for toes and fingers – pal’tsi. If you want to be specific, you can say pal’tsi na nogah – “fingers on the legs'' or pal’tsi na rukah – “fingers on the arms,” but the word itself remains the same.
It’s surprising how rarely we think of our toes, even though they are always there for us. There is something very loyal in the toes’ devotion. The fingers could lead you into trouble, but not the toes. Toes have no agenda of their own. If anything, they may even help you escape the trouble that the fingers may cause. Yet, we rarely acknowledge their existence or notice their individuality.
2. Vanity
Back in Russia, I used to wear nylon stockings. It was considered impolite to have bare legs. The pantyhose tore easily; it was difficult to mend them unnoticeably unless the run, as they said, was in a place hidden from view.
I was fifteen. I didn’t like to wear stockings – they itched, but many girls wore them even in the winter while I wore two pairs of woolen tights, called gamashi. Winters in Chelyabinsk were brutal. Stockings felt out of place – a summer butterfly amidst the snow. How vain one must be, thought I, to endanger your health like this – just so your legs could shimmer naked through the nylon and appear thin and delicate.
Was I vain too? I did wear pantyhose in the warmer weather when, in fact, it was too warm to wear anything. Perhaps I was.
3. Emotional Body Parts
I wonder if different parts of the body can feel emotions. I don’t mean physical pain. Pain is not an emotion – it is just pain. It can cause emotions, of course, and often it does. But could, for example, toes feel happiness or grief? Could my toes feel misunderstood, sad, or lonely?
Every few weeks, my father trims my mom’s toenails. He does it slowly and carefully as her toenails tend to grow into the skin. He applies red nail polish and carefully blows on her toes as if blessing them individually in some archaic ritual of creation.
I examine my toes – the skin seems flaky-white, dry. I think my toes feel unloved.
4. Greetings
The multitude of things is overbearing. Each object needs acknowledgment.
– Hello, drawers.
– Hello, hairbrush.
– Hello, toothpaste.
Everything is made by someone or something, assembled, put together. Yet, I fail to put together my own body parts.
– Hello, toes, – I say to my toes and bend them.
It looks like they are nodding their heads in greeting. If toes had heads, that is.
5. For-granted
My mouth is dry; I greet the water. The water likes to be greeted. It tastes better in gratitude.
It’s easy to take body parts for granted. Their feelings get hurt, and that’s when we feel pain and have no choice but to acknowledge their existence. If you have a bellyache, you become aware that you have a belly and intricate intestines with all their wiring inside – even if you may not know precisely how it all functions. After all, if you didn’t have a belly, you couldn’t possibly have a bellyache, even though we’ve been told that phantom pains in missing limbs do exist.
The toes say “thank you very much” when you take off your shoes. The toes are mostly very polite, unlike the fingers. The fingers can be rude and prideful. The toes are humbler.
Babies like to touch their toes. Babies are compact and generally friendly to their body parts. They wiggle their toes and say hello to them. Or they say some other greeting in their baby-tongue. They try to put toes in their month. Their fingers and toes often touch each other.
But then we grow and get taller and taller until the toes are so far away from our eyes that we forget about their existence, and that is why toes often feel sad. Oh, the quiet sadness of the toes. At least they have each other for company. I wonder if it is enough.
My toes and I like this one
Posted by: Barbara Huntington | August 14, 2021 at 11:31 AM