Scar stories: Left foot toes

I always carry medical adhesive tape with me in my purse.  Whenever I wear heels or any other potentially problematic shoes I make sure to tape up my foot in places of frequent friction.  I learned this trick from having danced en pointe.

I think I was twelve when I qualified for the level in which we'd learn to dance with pointe shoes and I (finally!) got to buy my first pair.  I had spent almost two hours in the tiny ballet store nearby, trying on various shoes to find the perfect fit for my feet, then figuring out what stuff to use to, well, properly stuff the inside of the shoe (the box).  I had always known that my right foot was the stronger of the two (I'm right-handed) but I found out right then that my left foot is actually slightly longer.  The store associate helping me out stuffed half a circular make-up sponge into the box to compensate.  In addition to that, I slid my feet into Ouch Pouches (pictured below) and nestled lamb's wool in the front part of the shoe to give a nice, snug cushion between my feet and the shoe. 

image source

That first lesson wearing pointe shoes was an adventure in re-learning how to walk, and in some ways re-learning to dance.  Pointe shoes need to be broken to properly dance in them, and as first-timers we all broke our shoes in the old-fashioned way: through repeatedly going from the flat-footed position to up on our toes, and back down.  Lots of ballet movies feature dancers banging their shoes on the floor or in door frames; I think in "Black Swan" some of the dancers dissemble the slippers, break the shank/body, then sew the parts back together again. 

In any case, the repetitions to break in the shoes were the cause of my first ballet-induced scars.  After the first lesson my toes were cramped and pale but otherwise fine, and I could walk properly.  Probably the rush of finally feeling like a proper ballerina helped to distract from the pain.  After my second lesson I undid all the accoutrement in my left slipper to unveil an almost-punctured blister on the toe next to my big toe.  (Side note: Isn't it strange, how each finger has a name, yet when it comes to toes it's just "big toe" and "pinky toe"?  But then again, we use our hands a lot more than our individual toes.  I wonder if other languages have specific names for each toe.  I know that in Korean the term for "toe" literally translates as "foot tip", and I think the same word is used for "toenail".)

I was slightly mortified.  After the first lesson one of my friends had come away with a blister on each foot, but I thought it was something that happened to her, because she had a low arch (not conducive to dancing on toes).  I thought I was Impervious To Injury While Dancing; I will always be a klutz but had never gotten seriously injured or scarred while dancing.  Twisted or strained some muscles, yes, but nothing I couldn't dance through.  But there I was, second lesson (really only about 20 minutes of it danced with pointe shoes), and the pain in my toe was palpable and visible.  Gingerly I put my shoes on, and I treat my blister when I got home.  The ballet instructor had suggested before the first lesson we buy medical adhesive tape to use on our toes in addition to all the padding and fluff, and initially I ignored it.  But subconsciously I must've squirreled this soundbite in my head, because it came to mind while I was at the local CVS.

There's a faint circle around the joint where that blister cropped up.  It's another one of those scars that isn't noticeable unless I point it out.  I gave up dancing before entering high school, but I never forgot the tape trick.  In addition to having feet of slightly different lengths, my feet are small and wide, and the sides often rub when I wear anything other than sneakers.  Shoe makers (cobblers?) must assume that since my feet are tiny (US men's 3, women's 5), they must be slender and narrow as well, like Cinderella's.