A letter from a reader

AT 69, I STOPPED DREADING THE WALK BACK TO THE CAR

I have never written anything like this before, and I want to say at the start that I do not work for anybody and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to put on their feet.

But three different women stopped me about my sandals at the farmers market this past Saturday, all before I had even made it to the tomatoes, and I have now explained myself enough times that it seemed easier to just write it down properly.

It is the afternoons I want to tell you about first. For a couple of summers now, my feet have been fine in the morning and something else entirely by three o'clock. I would leave the house in a pretty pair of sandals, and by the time I was walking back across the parking lot my arches would be aching in that particular way that makes you count how many more steps it is to the car.

Pretty sandals that punished my feet by mid-afternoon, or the sensible kind that looked like they belonged in a hospital waiting room. That seemed to be the whole choice.

I did not choose that, not really. Nobody decides that getting dressed for summer means picking which part of the day to suffer through. It happens quietly, one pair of sandals at a time, until you are standing in a shoe aisle again, holding two options you do not actually want.

How it happens

Nobody warns you that your feet change. Somewhere in your sixties the padding you never thought about starts to thin, the arches that used to hold you up all day need a little help, and the sandals that were perfectly fine for forty years suddenly are not.

And the shops do not make it easy. Go and look. There is the pretty aisle, thin soles and thinner straps, made for someone who is not on her feet past noon. And there is the other aisle, thick and beige and unmistakably orthopedic, the kind that announces itself before you even sit down.

So you pick one and live with the trade. Cute and aching, or comfortable and resigned. I picked cute for longer than I should have, and paid for it every single afternoon.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I think a lot of us have.

I had decided that "orthopedic" was a word for shoes, not for me. I pictured something clunky and beige, the sort of thing you buy when you have stopped caring how your feet look, and I was not ready to be that woman yet.

It turns out that was never the choice on offer. A proper cushioned sole does not have to look like a medical device, and a sandal that actually supports you does not have to give up on being pretty to do it. I had simply never been shown the version that does both, and it took me until sixty-nine to find it.

They are called the Maya

I saw them properly for the first time on my neighbor Denise, at the market, of all places, standing at the peach stand looking entirely comfortable while the rest of us shifted our weight from foot to foot.

They are the Maya, from Dorothy & June, a small American boutique here in Charleston. The sole is properly cushioned, lightweight enough that you forget you have them on, and the strap is a soft toe-loop design instead of the flat, floppy kind that never quite stays put. Denise's were covered in the loveliest boho print, blues and rust and cream, the sort of thing that makes an ordinary outfit look like you tried.

They are light in a way I did not expect, and the sole has just enough give that you feel like you are walking on something rather than nothing at all. The toe-loop keeps the whole thing anchored, so there is none of that flip-flop slap or the strap sliding sideways halfway through the day. That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is just a sandal that somebody actually thought about.

What happened that Saturday

I wore them the following week, first to run errands and then, without really planning to, for the rest of the day. The pharmacy, the grocery store, picking my granddaughter up from swim practice.

Three women asked me about them that same Saturday. One at the pharmacy counter, one in the parking lot, and one was my friend Carol, who I have known for fifteen years and who has never once asked me where anything I own came from.

She said they looked like something you would find in a little shop on vacation, not something you had to remember to pack for one.

What I noticed more than the asking, though, was that I had stopped thinking about my feet at all, which had genuinely never happened to me before. I was not digging for my keys, or wondering whether something had slipped at the heel, or counting steps back to the car. I ran my errands and did not think once about what I was wearing on my feet.

Three things I have learned since

One. The cushion is not a marketing word. I have bought plenty of sandals that claimed to be comfortable and were not. This one actually has give to it, and by the end of a full day my feet still feel like my feet, not something I need to soak.

Two. The toe-loop does more than I expected. I did not think a strap between my toes would make much difference, but it keeps the whole sandal anchored so nothing slides or slaps. I forget I have them on, which for a sandal is the highest compliment I can give.

Three. A good print earns its keep. I was ready for comfortable to mean plain. It does not. Mine goes with white jeans, with a sundress, with the plain t-shirts I live in all summer, and nobody has once looked at my feet and thought "sensible."

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this part, because the price is what made me suspicious in the first place.

The Maya is $39.95. It was $89.95.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because a sandal that actually holds up your arch and still looks like something usually costs a good deal more than that.

There is no catch that I have found. Dorothy & June is a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and this was during their Summer Sale, when they mark down the season's styles before the weather turns.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and read the reviews before I ordered. Just under nine hundred of them, sitting at 4.8 stars, which is about as close to universal agreement as I have ever seen for a shoe. I did not deliberate long once I saw the price, and by the time I mentioned them to Carol, a couple of the colors were already thinning out in my size.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting on my porch with a glass of iced tea and you asked me straight out, this is what I would say.

If you have spent the last few summers picking between pretty and comfortable, and quietly resigning yourself to aching feet by mid-afternoon because that seemed to be the deal, it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a pair of sandals changes anything important. It does not. But there is something to be said for getting to the end of a long day and not thinking about your feet once, and I had genuinely forgotten that was possible.

The Summer Sale is on right now, and the popular colors have already started thinning out.

I have not reached for my old sandals once since May.

Amy