Thursday 11 September 2008

HNT - Feet

I have very strange fingers and toes. Well not all of them. Just my big toes and the first two fingers of each hand. The joints of each are somehow twisted so that my finger up to the knuckle is straight but above that point it is twisted so that my nails point outwards rather than straight up.

As a child, I would spend hours trying to twist them back. It was one of the first things Ruf noticed about my feet - well that and the hated pink nail polish. The only colour he likes is black, which is strange because my toenails were painted that shade for virtually the entirety of my teens. These days, mostly they remain unpainted.




Somehow, it didn't seem appropriate to be naked on this day. I remember standing awestruck in front of the television in the kitchen as the tragic events unfolded and, even now, I feel compelled to watch programmes about the horror. The amazing bravery of so many people in a familiar world reduced to a landscape that was unrecognisable and so totally terrifying.

Last night the focus was the 9/11 Hotel and its guests on that fateful day. The Marriott World Trade Centre, nestled below and between the Twin Towers, took the full force of their collapse and yet some people still survived. Unbelievable courage and tenacity and luck.















It puts my silly superficial concerns about my fingers and toes into a whole new perspective.







HNTbutton

15 comments:

B said...

It certainly does put things in perspective.

Funnily enough I have a very similar picture to this of my own feet on top the WTC taken a decade or so ago. It's been a tradition to always photograph my feet on top of monuments.

Lovely HNT

Cate said...

So very true.

I don't like my feet very much eihter so I probably will never post them on HNT. But compared to the tragedy of that day and how it changed the world, it does seem trivial.

Thank you for the reminder.

Cate xxx

Vixen said...

It's a pretty shade. I hate my toes too. They seem misshapen. Toes/feet are such a funny thing, lol.

A Secret Freak said...

I guess we all hate our feet! I would not wear open toe shoes until I was 21! Then I quit caring what other people thought and went with what I liked! and BTW... I like your toes!
HHNT!

Polar said...

I do not have a Foot Fetish, But I could LEARN, with yours!

One thought that repeated itself, many times before the tragic day:
Why do we on this side of the pound think we are immune to the attacks the rest of the world has had to endure?

Ms. Inconspicuous said...

I think that's one of those days, like Pearl Harbor in the U.S., that you could ask people where they were, and they'll remember exactly.

It feels strange having that iconic, tragic moment in my formative years, when I always thought that Grandparents were the only ones with such memories.

Happy HNT--toes, towers and all.

Anonymous said...

My fingers are the same...I can't tell if my toes are; too many years of silly, pointy shoes when I was young :(

The anniversary of 9/11 always feels like a double whammy as it was also the day a very close friend of mine suffered a sudden collapse; she never regained consciousness and her ventilator was switched off on the 13th. I can never hear about 9/11 without thinking of her and missing her :'(

Anonymous said...

your lil piggies look good from here!

Excellent thoughts too.

HHNT

Gorilla Bananas said...

So, so, suck my toe
All the way to Mexico.

Anonymous said...

That is a pretty colour. And your toes look quite normal to me. :)

Lapis Ruber said...

I admire your sensitivity. I think the best tribute we can pay those murdered on that day is to get on as best we can with life. Otherwise the murderers have won. So Happy HNT anyway!

Osbasso said...

I agree with Lapis. Life goes on. We must go on. I don't know that putting weird, misshapen toes online is right, but... ;-) hehehe

d2b said...

Happy HNT!

9/11 is surely one days I never forgets, even sitting on the other side of the planet and watching the news was scaring. I can't imagine the feelings of those who were involved!

Happy HNT!!

Constance said...

I have a bunion on my left foot too, Cake.

Mr. Nighttime said...

If I had a foot fetish, I would need a drool bib by now, but thankfully, I don't. ;-)

I was in NYC on 9/11, home for a wedding a few days beforehand, and staying with my mom in her Bronx apartment. We could see the plume of smoke rising above Manhattan from her window, frantically trying to reach my brother who, like I was, is a paramedic. Thankfully they kept him at his station in the Bronx, and he didn't go to Ground Zero. My cousin however, works within a stones throw of the WTC, but thankfully she got out of Manhattan before the towers fell.

It took time to get out, but fortunately, we were far enough in the northern part of the city to escape and make our way back to Rochester.

A horrible day that I will never forget. I remember the towers being built, taking friends there that would visit NYC for the first time, eating at Windows On The World, the restaurant at the top of 1 WTC. All these are just memories now, lost in time, like tears in the rain.