It's a sunny day in the 1980s, just before I start my first real job writing for a newspaper. Mom and I are shopping at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, and we are with her great friend Marguerite "Wiggie" Hyman. Both Wiggie and her husband Alan were kind and beautiful, but Wig had the big personality: husky laugh, statement jewelry, curious mind.
Wig and my mom — no slouch herself in the style department — are helping me start a wardrobe befitting my first real job. Well, they are helping me buy what they imagine a lady reporter should wear, which will turn out to bear no resemblance to the way underpaid young journalists actually dress for a day at a failing newspaper in Painesville, Ohio. But for now we are at an elegant shoe store, and Wiggie picks up a sassy low-heeled pump made of matte red leather.
"Everyone needs a pair of red shoes," Wig declares. "People think red won't go with anything, but it's not true. You treat red like a neutral. It goes with anything."
A clerk conjures a pair in my size, and when I slip into them, it's magic. I am in Dorothy's ruby slippers, instantly more powerful. Magnificent.
To this day, I believe in the transformative power of red shoes. I also believe in Wiggie's bold, red-shoe spirit, even if summoning it requires more effort and intention than it seemed to for her. My version of "bold" is Wiggie Lite — more internal attitude than outward expression — but it serves me well, when I remember to use it.
It has dawned on me recently that I haven't worn red shoes in a while, literally or metaphorically. I mostly blame covid. Two years of watching variants and working at home in bare feet has somehow made me simultaneously fatter and smaller. Timidity has crept in. What with all the worrying, wondering, frustration and fear, all that searching for silver linings in the covid cloud, I forgot boldness was even a thing.
That spirit totally slipped my mind.
Maybe this feels familiar to you. Everyone's pandemic experience has been a little different, but it's fair to say the lockdowns and vigilance that helped keep us above ground generally ran counter to living large. And it's too bad, because a pinch of bold makes everything better.
Bold amplifies love. It isn't the same as fearlessness, but it can turbo-charge courage. It is not heedless or careless or willfully ignorant — it absolutely can coexist with masks and vaccines, for instance — but it prefers that we don't overthink. Bold sometimes shows up for decisions we later regret. (Admire my impressive restraint in not mentioning ear gauges, won't you?) No problem. Mistakes will be made, and boldness requires radical acceptance of the existence of risk.
It also often accompanies wisdom, brilliance and demonstrations of grit.
Embodying boldness is not about being loud or garish, although I just saw a video clip of seventysomething Elton John wearing a conflagration of beads and sequins and thought, "Now THAT is bold." And it was, because even Sir Elton, with his history of Liberace chic, still must summon decisiveness, confidence and action to slip into the sartorial equivalent of a Vegas Christmas tree.
Decision + confident action = bold.
It's red shoes, and it's an introvert starting party conversation. Bold is our friend Eric, who recently trained for and landed a job in a brand new field. He's 78. Bold is asking someone to explain something better and swallowing the urge to apologize for yourself when you do it. It's checking your rearview, then stepping on the gas to merge onto the highway and deciding you will be just fine.
I could go on. Could you? What's the boldest you've ever been? What's the next bold thing you'd like to do? If it takes a minute to think of anything, I understand — same here. It's worth considering, though.
Even for those of us least scathed by covid, the pandemic has been a thief, and it might be time to start stealing back some of the parts of ourselves we've been missing. Those of us mourning previous states of self-assurance might literally start by buying red shoes, and I'm not ruling it out, but heck. I still work in bare feet. How often would I wear red shoes? Where would I go?
Yet that's the point. I am tired of tentative. I want to stretch out and reconnect with my bolder self. She had fun, that one. I'm thinking about where to wander, what to see, and how to bring red-shoe spirit to every kind of travel, even if it's just to walk the dog.
Although to be clear, I want to do more than walk the dog.
Chin up, eyes ahead. I intend to reclaim the long stride.
You can come along if you like.