Last night we had our first snow, which means for the next six months I don’t have to feel guilty about the weeds in my flowerbeds. Sadly, it also means I have to wear real shoes, the kind with closed toes, solid backs, and saddest of all, socks.

I truly fear this moment every year, and put it off as long as I can. For the first day of my new job, I pulled out all the stops and wore some nice officey loafers designed to make me look like the professional ID badge around my neck wasn’t stolen from a real teacher, though the effect might have been rather spoiled had they’d known I’d actually left the house in fuzzy leopard slippers and had to return home to change. In the end I minced around all day on stinging feet, with a fixed smile on my face, running on nerves and pure adrenaline. However, being so aware of my own feet, I did pay particular attention to the feet of the other female teachers, and there I discovered my salvation. Lots and lots of barefoot sandals. I couldn’t believe my luck, surely this was the right profession for me.

I know at least a quarter of you are rolling your eyes and thinking, “Put on your big girl pants and get some comfortable shoes!” Well, therein lies the rub.

I have big feet, I mean big feet, and wide enough to house a circus. I used to be terribly embarrassed of this as a kid. There were all the other girls twittering around with their dainty size four, five, or six feet, making even trainers look like fairy princess shoes. I’d go to the store and ask for the same darling Mary Janes in my size, and the salesman would bring out a boat with “Titanic” printed on the box. That was back when all shoe stores had people with a shoe horn and a measuring tool, who scurried into the back to bring out a stack of shoeboxes with pairs to try. Nowadays a lot of stores keep all the sizes on the display shelves so you can try shoes to your hearts content without bothering anybody . . . and slink away in private shame when you discover anything that fits in the toes is sliding sloppy right off the heel.

I was an adult before I knew shoes came in widths, genuinely believing that toes were meant to be pinched, and suffering was an integral part of a matching outfit, rather dreadful for a fashion design major. I actually had an easier time when I moved to Brazil because Brazilian feet tended to be more wide and blocky, which probably means there is a subset of Brazilian women with medium-wide feet, running around believing that shoes were meant to be super loose so you have to curl your toes to hang on.

Moving to China meant shoes simply did not exist in my dimension, and had to be brought in my suitcase or shipped from the United States. We arrived in China with a handful of possessions, thinking our shipment would be arriving any day, and a year later we were still waiting, which left us rather short in the shoe department. My daughter, Abby, had feet at the top of the Chinese shoe range, so her shoes did exist in the physical realm, and my boys, Porter and Chase, were nine and ten, so their shoes existed too, for the first year and a half. Then the DNA came crashing in, and suddenly Chase needed a new pair of trainers. Off we went, confidently scouring the shoe floor of the commodities market, one vendor after another shaking their head in disappointed amazement. Finally, we sat in a shop, trying the last shoe of a hopeful seller, watched by a horde of shoe shopkeepers who had crowded into the store to gape. When Chase-arella couldn’t get the last shoe on his prodigious foot, the salesman dipped his head in defeat. That was the biggest he had, and we were out of luck. Then, from the middle of the multitude, we heard a small voice. “I have one,” and off he sped. There the whole throng remained until he returned, proudly cradling a box in his arms. Out came the shoes, and on they slipped as people laughed and smiled like the closing scene of a hideously cheesy movie. The shoes fit, the biggest pair in the entire commodities market, and the shopkeeper had made the sale in somebody else’s store. Chase was twelve.