My feet are tiny for my age. They are small, like tiny peas growing from thick long green stems on cool, hot spring mornings. They’re kind of strange and my big finger is sort of crooked. But I like them. They are like my mother’s feet, strange and somewhat ugly, but also sweet and tiny and getting attention to themselves. My mom’s feet, they are small, but kind of longish, the sort of longish that seems to keep going and going on forever and makes us wonder. They are unlike my sister’s, which are long in a different sort of way, a way where you can see their ending and their limitations. They are thin, my sister’s feet. Thin like long hollow green bamboo sticks with little toes that circle unevenly around each other, circling and growing strangely, without any pattern or stop, each finger going its own way and outgrowing the other, only to be later outgrown by another one.
Alicia, her feet sound like her name, always changing and outgrowing things, never quite staying one particular way, never really changing completely.
Catalina, my other sister is quite the opposite though. Her feet are some kind of uneven triangles. Every finger is a teensy bit smaller than the one before it, except for the second toe, which is bigger than the toe before it. It is the only factoid about her feet that is unique, special, that truly shows who she is. But it is hidden. Ahe is the hidden toad behind the rock, the one that is afraid of getting out because of what it may see. Her feet are a mix. A mix between my mom’s and my dad’s feet. My father’s feet. They are special, unlike anything I have ever seen. Like mine, they are fat and strong, so strong you can see the veins with the blood coursing, sticking out. Like mountains, they stand tall and with pride, but they are not pretentious. They are special by themselves, they don’t need to show off their power, they are already this way: strong and powerful. They are the sweet smell of fresh sandia and papaya being cut off every morning before I go to school. They are so much like my father, who is handsome even though he is growing old. He who’s eyes sparkle like golden diamonds, is the one who always makes me smile with his weird sense of humor only I get. He who wakes up at seven in the morning because my dog is running around barking for other dogs, is as sweet a s a grain of sugar. Is the one who knows exactly what kinds of books I like and where to get them. Is the one who sits on our terraza looking elsewhere, analyzing life and its very exixtence. He and his feet, his feet that show so much about him walk around like they own everything. And are the ones who make me smile.
Alicia, her feet sound like her name, always changing and outgrowing things, never quite staying one particular way, never really changing completely.
Catalina, my other sister is quite the opposite though. Her feet are some kind of uneven triangles. Every finger is a teensy bit smaller than the one before it, except for the second toe, which is bigger than the toe before it. It is the only factoid about her feet that is unique, special, that truly shows who she is. But it is hidden. Ahe is the hidden toad behind the rock, the one that is afraid of getting out because of what it may see. Her feet are a mix. A mix between my mom’s and my dad’s feet. My father’s feet. They are special, unlike anything I have ever seen. Like mine, they are fat and strong, so strong you can see the veins with the blood coursing, sticking out. Like mountains, they stand tall and with pride, but they are not pretentious. They are special by themselves, they don’t need to show off their power, they are already this way: strong and powerful. They are the sweet smell of fresh sandia and papaya being cut off every morning before I go to school. They are so much like my father, who is handsome even though he is growing old. He who’s eyes sparkle like golden diamonds, is the one who always makes me smile with his weird sense of humor only I get. He who wakes up at seven in the morning because my dog is running around barking for other dogs, is as sweet a s a grain of sugar. Is the one who knows exactly what kinds of books I like and where to get them. Is the one who sits on our terraza looking elsewhere, analyzing life and its very exixtence. He and his feet, his feet that show so much about him walk around like they own everything. And are the ones who make me smile.