Babysitting, like self-consciousness, is a curse of girlhood. It seems we are all doomed to spend our pre-teen evenings and weekends pretending to be mothers. But I learned a bit about myself doing the job. I'm stubborn and strict when it comes to kids, I'll never pass Cocoa Puffs off as a healthy breakfast, and bedtime is the piece de resistance of every evening job.
One night while playing with four-year-old Sarah in her family room, her parents came home with guests for an after hours impromptu party. I could hear them in the other room, voices magnified by a combination of hardwood reverberations and a generous decanter. Sarah's mother, as especially vocal woman, was critiquing a certain television actress, saying, "She's cute, but she's not beautiful. A woman with small eyes can never be beautiful."
I glanced at my own reflection in the blank TV screen. I couldn't even see my eyes. I'd just discovered the miracle of my mother's mascara, a wand that could perform real magic. It opened up my blonde-lashed eyes a bit more, but I'd never look like all those doe-eyed models and actresses who were considered beautiful. In that moment I knew that what I saw in that television screen was me, and I could never be beautiful.
My small eyes were only one of the many physical burdens that began to plague me in my teen years. Freckles, hips, cellulite, knobby knuckles, the list goes on. And somewhere on that list hides the fact that my feet turn inward. Actually, it isn't my feet that are the problem, but my hips. The pigeon-toed feet are just what give the deformity away. I remember my sister telling me that American Indians walked with one foot in front of the other. I knew that ballerinas walked with their feet turned outward in a strangely graceful waddle. But who walked with their feet turned in? Cripples and gimps, that's who.
In childhood photos, one leg awkwardly points in, and there's my tiny-eyed smile to top it off, capturing me blissfully unaware of my minor deformity. As I grew older, I became aware of my feet; in fifth grade I tried ballet and could never position my legs quite right. I could make my feet point fairly far outward, but my knees would still be sheepishly gaping straight ahead. "Turn out those knees!" my teacher, Lori, would bark, and I'd strain and push, my legs shaking with the effort. I gave up on ballet with little dismay. But I honestly didn't think my feet made me walk funny. My stride felt natural and fluid. Then one morning during my freshman year of high school, I walked through study hall clad in my sister's Mary Janes one size too small for my feet. A popular boy in my class, Ryan, said for all to hear, "You're pigeon-toed." Just that. A simple statement true enough not to be considered an insult, blatant enough to make me conscious of every step I made for the rest of the semester.
A year late I discovered that Ryan's announcement is just as humiliating when spoken in another language. Jet-lagged and exhausted, my mother, sister, and I walked away from the Glockenspiel when an elderly Munich citizen benevolently approached us. He spoke German to us with such familiarity that we stayed and listened. Undaunted by our blank tourists smiles, he began gesturing toward my feet and then turning his own inward. He said something about his "mama", indicating some kind of reprimand. My mom had an epiphany and laughed. "I think he's saying he used to be pigeon-toed like you, and his mother made him turn his feet out." She shared a laugh with her new German friend, and I glowered. As we turned away, I urged my mom and sister on with a waspish, "Schnell!" Didn't the Nazis eliminate cripples too?
The next time the topic of my awkward feet surfaced I was older and more comfortable in my own skin. My dad and I sat side by side on the couch in our family room. Both of us had both feet propped up on the coffee table, relaxed. I don't remember who noticed it first, but the image was uncanny. My dad's feet, size thirteen and hairy, were the very image of my feet, much smaller and less fuzzy. Our left feet stuck up in the air, and our right feet sagged inward at identical angles like wilted tulips. The sight was comical, doubly awkward, but it endeared my feet to me as something I shared with my father, one of my favorite people.
My eyes are still small despite my more recent encounter with eyeliner, and they only get squintier as the day wears on. New bodily awkwardnesses have become more important than my pigeon-toed feet, but they are still with me. My shoes wear out unevenly. My adult ballet class instructor implored me to work on getting my knees to face outward. I realized, for a second, more permanent time, that my body was not meant for ballet. Happy to go through life with my dad's feet, I quit after a few months, but not before my instructor bruised me with a new one, "Tuck in your tail." Thanks a lot, Mom.
