The Interminable Quest for the Perfect Black Shoe

Any singer will tell you that standing for an hour or half an hour in performance creates a requirement for a comfortable shoe. A comfortable black shoe. When I started formulating this blog post in my mind, my thought was to pull every black shoe out of my shoe closet, pile them up, and snap a photograph of that mountain of blackness.

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Yes, I have a lot of black shoes. Yes, I have a closet devoted to my shoes. And no, all my shoes do not fit into my shoe closet. A few spill over into other closets. Several other closets.
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Ah, but then Naot came into the picture. I had seen the Naot Matai in a catalog. Then I tried it on at a local shoe store and fell in love. The shoe was expensive, but I've been known to buy expensive shoes. Not Jimmy Choo or Prada or Manolo Blahnik expensive, but definitely Stuart Weitzman, Ferragamo, and Taryn Rose. Three pair of Taryn Rose, once.

So, damn the expense. But the store didn't have the color I wanted in the size I needed, so I put the project on hold. Then several months later I saw my friend, Kim, who with her man, John, owns the Great Harvest franchise in Fairlawn, wearing the Naot Matai. Kim spends the entire day on her feet. Five days a week, all day, walking from mixer to oven to cash register to storeroom. My feet ache to think about her day. Then at one of our Star Wars in Concert performances, I noticed one of my fellow Chamber Choir singers wearing a pair of the shoes. Both women raved about the comfort of this shoe.

So back I went to Lucky Shoes, but again they were out of my size in the black. So I went online to Nordstrom, who also was out of my size in the black. Zappo's to the rescue. I should have just gone there first, but you know about my love for and addiction to Nordstrom and, even greater than that, my commitment to buy local.

Two days later the Zappo's box was on my doorstep. I wore the shoes to the office the next day, and then to Messiah rehearsal that night. Wow! Comfort! There was no breaking-in period. There was not a moment of discomfort.

The shoes do not look as chic, as fashion forward (I truly hate that phrase!) as the shoes I normally wear, but—Oh. My. Gosh.—can you spell comfort? I've even worn them to the office a couple of days, just because they feel so darned good.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to buy another pair in a different colorway to take on my trip to Ireland this summer.

And all those other black shoes? Umm, there may be a thrift shop in their future. Or a vintage shop—after all, one pair of patent flats has been in my closet since around 1981.