A participant runs barefoot on Queen Street during the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, in 2014.The Globe and Mail
Ailsa Ross is the author of the novel Hovel.
A memorable moment at a Banff Centre prize ceremony a few Novembers ago came when the MC invited a young barefoot guy up on stage. He seemed shy, almost embarrassed to be up there. But the MC had announced she was looking for the “most badass person” in the audience, and his pals had immediately pointed him out, shouting that their friend “doesn’t wear shoes until the first snow!”
That night, feeling quite enamoured with the man wearing no shoes, I went home, opened my computer and read that going barefoot can help with balance and gait. I learned that after six months of barefoot walking, foot strength can increase dramatically – on average, according to one study in Nature, by 57.4 per cent.
I was reminded then of a photo from the early 20th century. Taken on St. Kilda, a remote archipelago on Scotland’s farthest western edge, it showed a tourist’s foot being compared to an islander’s foot. The difference in their foot strength was obvious – it was like looking at the paws of a puppy next to a wolf’s. Suddenly, I also wanted the paws of a wolf. Of course I don’t technically need strong feet, given that my life does not involve scaling soaring sea cliffs in search of birds’ eggs for my family’s supper. But I have no need in my life for strong abs either, and that has not stopped me from doing half-hearted sit-ups every so often.
Anyway, winter came quickly after I first saw that barefoot man up on stage. I waited for springtime to come to the mountains, then I found a path at the edge of the woods where the snow had mostly melted. I stuffed my boots in my rucksack and began to walk. That was when I realized that – having had no practice in barefoot walking – I was akin to the astronauts who come down from months-long space missions with feet so baby soft that, for weeks, walking back on Earth is painful. The cold path really hurt my feet, which have more nerves per square centimetre than any other part of the body – around 200,000 per foot. That’s a lot of nerve endings to be sending pain messages to the brain all at once.
Still, I tried again, a few weeks later, when the buds were swelling on the trees and the last snow had been replaced by mud puddles. This time I did not feel like an astronaut. I felt like a hippo. It is wonderful to be wallowing in mud, even just up to your toes. There is so much that feels pleasant to touch while walking a path barefoot. I’m thinking in particular of soft grass, and dandelion heads.
What does not feel incredible is stepping on small rocks and other sharp objects. There are hazards to walking barefoot, and so we’ve been fashioning sandals from hemp and hides and even dried fish skins for many thousands of years. Still, something happens when one has to look out for hazards underfoot. It necessitates looking at the world that bit more intently.
Jain nuns and monks never go in vehicles; they walk barefoot everywhere, no matter the weather or terrain: that way they have to look where they’re going. They have to walk more slowly, and as a result they’re much less likely to accidentally step on the bugs and other small life forms they dedicate their lives to protecting.
I think that’s really why I like going barefoot. I’m not really bothered if my feet are strong or weak, but I do want an excuse to walk with more intention. In her book, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit writes “I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness.”
When I’m walking even more slowly than that, because I’m looking out for rocks and twigs, I’m walking even slower than the speed of thought. This can be a peaceful feeling. Though sometimes it takes a while for my mind to settle, especially when I’m walking the familiar streets near home. Not long ago, though, while glancing down to check my footing, I saw a stream of shiny red insects crossing the path just in front of my toes. On closer inspection, they were ladybugs, so many that they made tiny ruffles in the nearby grass, like wind.
When I got back to the house, I read that a group of ladybugs is collectively known as a “loveliness,” and that their spots symbolize the seven joys and seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary. During this particular internet search, I didn’t feel like I was distracting myself from my surroundings; I felt like I was paying attention again.
“The body is the vehicle of being in the world,” wrote the phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. What better way to entwine myself with my surroundings than to let my feet directly meet the ground – even if that’s only a sidewalk rich in ladybugs? I love when bugs shape my thoughts.