Feet continued...

Yes, yes, I know, not the most exciting subject, but just humor the blogger for a mo', if you please...

Ever try concentrating on the act of walking? It's an act that we bipeds take for granted, up there with breathing or moving your arm without creating the conscious thought to do so. Our brains are too fast for that. So slowing down enough to recognize how your gait proceeds, how your feet fall, heel to toe, in the regular act of walking, is almost confusing. Now granted, I'm one of those elephant-in-a-china-shop people. When I try to be quiet in the kitchen because Les is napping on the couch, I'm liable to drop a dish and light a small fire in my attempts to keep the noise down. Which brings up a whole other train of thought about how maybe I'm not a klutz due to heredity and dipshittedness, but because of a true physical deformity, but I don't want to go down that road right now...I'm too focused on my walk. My left foot, in spite of its flatfooted nature, knows how to do its job. I step, heel to toe, with apparent even movement along the midsection of my foot. The right foot, however, is a confused mess; one step I'm walking on the outer edge, then I'm overcompensating by walking squarely on my lack of arch. Wait, that's how I should be walking, that's not overcompensating, but the truth is that I can't walk that way all the time, because it has created the misalignment of my toes and subsequent pain above the metatarsels and below at the ball. I shorten my steps, the walk of my right foot is a combination of those two, and I'm winded from the concentrating by the time I get back to my desk.

Walking is so taken for granted, that until you're faced with difficulty in ambulating, you plain don't think about it. Now I can't stop thinking about it, because every step brings pain. I so wish I had a bicycle, so that I could exercise without worrying about how it's going to affect my foot. Also because I dream of exploring West Columbia and Columbia on two wheels. In the meantime, careful stepping around the damn cats, taping the arch, and finding the dough for the orthotics. And knitting for sanity.