Roast beef toe is having a hellish week.

I inherited my mother’s flat feet.

And I can’t blame my Indian ancestors.

My Rez relatives have the most beautiful, most slim feet you have ever seen.

It is as if Samuel Morton’s pronouncements of race spark a cinder of vérité. In 1839 he wrote:

Notwithstanding the general custom of going barefoot, the American Indians possess remarkably small feet, and their hands have the same delicate conformation.

But Morton misunderstood: not all Indians are alike.

First daughter (Wak-o-apa) and I have sad, sore pancake feet.

We’d win the Daisy Duck-foot look-a-like contest in a heartbeat.

I blame my French and English forebears.

Doctors tried to change my gait by prescribing old-lady shoes and giving me foot exercises when I was a lass.

Instead I went barefoot and forgot the exercises.

My mother just shrugged.

Perhaps she gave up on the strong-willed girl.

In July, my honey and I spent 2 weeks in London and surrounding areas walking.

Well, he walked and I waddled.

Turns out we trekked 140 miles in 12 days, according to his iPhone.

Roast beef toe came home and groaned and complained.

Seems the metatarsal is spent.

But I ignore the complaints: forget the toe, the ball, the heel.

Onward.

That’s what I do best.

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#nativescience

#nativeamericanwriter