When Did You Fall In Love With Sneakers?
This is something a little different than the usual. I wrote this for a collab with Nike last year for #AirMaxDay. It never saw the light of day but… i feel like it deserved.
It was summer 2002. July.
I was walking with my boyfriend at the time. We were hand in hand around Harlem which felt like we were on a vacation because we were so far away from our homes and parents in the North Bronx. It was a 15 minute drive, but when you are 17 and not allowed to have a boyfriend, that was the equivalent of Paris. We got turkey and cheese sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, salt, pepper, vinegar and oil, and parked by Riverside and ate them on the hood over his red 1995 Acura Integra while the sun went down. Amerie’s “Why Don't We Fall In Love” was playing on the radio. After we drank our Snapples, he smiled at me, tossed the keys to the car at me and told me to open the trunk, because there was something in the back for me. Confused, I walked to the back of the car and turned the key to lift the trunk. There was an orange box with the familiar white check on the top. I didn't even have to open up the box to know they were the black and red Air Max 95s I wanted. Black and red were my favorite color and the first time I saw them on my friend's feet, I was in love. I never asked my foreign mother for sneakers because I already knew the answer but I BEGGED her for these. She was NOT even listening to my pleas and I couldn’t buy them on my own with my afterschool money. I was in tears on the phone with my boyfriend telling him how I never ask for anything and all I wanted was these sneakers.
I didn’t even touch the boxes. I ran to the front of the car and hugged him, tears in my eyes. I remember realizing then, that I loved him. He only smiled because he knew that he caused mine. I looked in his eyes and the intensity of teenage love toldme that I’d stare into these eyes forever. I mean, how could we break up? He bought me Airmaxes. At 17, that was an engagement ring. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the trunk. That’s when I realized there were two boxes. I was so excited I put my sneakers on immediately and made him change into his, and asked someone walking by to take our picture. I leaned against him as he leaned against his car, his arms wrapped around me, meeting my hands at the plate of the name belt, and my smile was so big because I got my man and my sneakers, what else did I need? The love wore out much quicker than the sneakers. I remember being so hurt, refusing to wear the sneakers anymore because they reminded him. Staring at our picture from that day, wishing I could go back to that moment because I just KNEW I’d never love again and would never get over him.
I think about those Air Maxes often.
