Her Shoes
A story on In Her Shoes, the book, and why I probably will not see the movie despite Cameron Diaz rumored being basically naked the entire 130 minutes:
The weekend in September three years ago that Damon, Beth and I drove to Anchorage to see Melissa safely onto a plane to Minnesota, we did all sorts of things around the Big City™ that prevented us from going to dinner with the family, including stopping by Barnes and Noble.
There is no such store in Fairbanks, see, and I have a love affair with bookstores; a love affair that is wholly supported and encouraged by my husband; a love affair that my husband likes to enjoy with me, a happy threesome of his dreams.
We spent many hours in there, and I picked a PHP book, yet another dream interpretation book, and a copy of In Her Shoes. It's a book about two sisters that are very different in every aspect of their lives except two: their shoe size and their love of shoes. The plot hit a chord with me, especially since my only sister was moving far away.
They day after we returned to Fairbanks, we got the horrible news.
The book sat on my bookshelf for over a year, maybe even two. I could not bring myself to read it, this book about the bond between sisters. And still I could not bring myself to get rid of it, this book about sisterly hate and love.
Not reading it helped me avoid the thoughts of her that were always in my head. I knew that I would cry the entire way through it's words because the part of me that I hated and loved so very passionately had been violently torn from my life.
Not getting rid of it helped me honor her memory. It served as an icon of the hole left in my heart.
And I know that this movie will sever that feeling. Though I did finally read the book and, months afterward, donate it to the Literacy Council, it still represents the grief I went through. The grief I still occasionally feel. And I know that the movie will ruin all of that.
I wear a 9.5 sized shoe; Melissa wore a size 7.
2005
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