LOOKING AT MY SHOES...

i have always taken photographs of my feet...of late i have puzzled over why...i was struck with a revelation while walking the other day...i was recalling my childhood...a strange foggy place full of images and sensations but very few memories... i recall being dressed for church in my hat and proper coat...my patent leather shoes with the strap...a child of 5 or 6 going to church with my father....

our church was in yorkville, in toronto, the posh spot to be in the toronto of today...in those days it was yorkville, the hippie haven...gogo dancers in windows, musicians playing on the streets and the smell of weed everywhere...i would hold tight to my father's hand as i passed by these strange and curious people, feeling quite over-dressed and foolish...the hypocrisy of church not lost on such a little girl..

my father was a soloist in the church and i would want to stay and listen to his songs and feel compelled to clap at the end, instead i was dragged to sunday school in the scary basement of the old church with the musty smell and the many closed doors....i would study the bible and get stickers of crosses and jesus...and at easter time...bunnies and eggs and pretty sparkly pastel crosses...i didn't understand any of it...my mind always a confused swirling of mixed emotions and many unanswered questions...the story of christ of no interest to me..my own life so painful and puzzling...i had no time for this man who was nailed to a cross...i felt imprisoned in my own life...without the nails...but enslaved and chained in my own way..

after this tradition of sunday worship i would then follow my father to someones' apartment...always different...i would sit like the good girl that i was...colouring book and crayons...in some unknown living room at some strange coffee table...while strange sounds would disturb and confuse me coming from behind a closed bedroom door...i knew my father wasn't with my mother...these women were patronizing and sickly sweet to the little girl with the bouncing curls and the fancy hat...my patent leather shoes looking back at me...

i would colour in the lines...wishing i could just scribble all over the page and continue scribbling until i had covered each and every surface of the womans apartment...whore...

i would look at my shoes and see my reflection...i would make faces at myself in the shiny black surface...i would wonder what my life meant and why i was here when i would rather be anywhere else...digging for worms in my backyard in my sneakers...getting my hands dirty...earth beneath my fingernails....

the shiny clean girl...dressed in her sunday best...looking in her patent leather shoes....looking for salvation...looking into the future...my shoes were my crystal ball and i searched in vain for better days that never came...