...of high heels.
Today I gave away my last three pairs of high heeled shoes. I am so glad that I could give them to a lovely friend who will look beautiful wearing them... I hope they will fit her, and that she will get many years of use out of them. Especially the black suede Anne Klein heels, which were my all time favorites. So elegant. So sexy.
Wearing those heels I felt like I could be Grace Kelly in "To Catch A Thief" or Eva Marie Saint in "North By Northwest" ~ albeit less blonde and without the sports cars or Cary Grant.
All good things must come to an end though, and some relationships end earlier than we would like them to. Thanks to a large spinal disc herniation in my L4-5 which put me into physical therapy for six months and *still* isn't mended, my days of wearing heels are done. It just isn't worth it. Even when I wear heels for a single hour I get tingling, pain and numbness that last for over a week.
It sounds ridiculous and mundane to bemoan the loss of shoes when one retains the considerably more generous gift of life. Still, one single yoga class six years ago (where I managed to herniate my back) managed to cheat me out of decades of potential high heel wearing which makes me grumpy. I really do LOVE SHOES. I think even ninety year old ladies should be able to wear sophisticated heels if they feel like it.
I haven't worn any gorgeous or sexy shoes since before I fell pregnant with my third child - who is nearing two years old. My shoe life has become a jumble of Asics, Keens, Doc Martens and Ugg Boots.
Patiently then, these three pairs of black heels have waited in my closet for their chance to get out of the house for one of our old-time adventures: a date, a show, a holiday party. Even though I've known for fourteen months that I wouldn't be able to wear them again, for the longest time I didn't have the heart to let them go. They represented something to me... what does one call it?
Youth.
It amazes me that I am thirty-five years old. How did this happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that my friends and I were getting our driving licenses and borrowing our parents' cars to head out to beach bonfires? I remember turning sixteen and thinking, "Wow, I'm almost an adult!" Now I'm more than twice that age, and it truly feels like the past nineteen years have passed by in one brilliant flash. How is it that childhood seemed to move like molasses - so slowly - but after hitting 18 the hands of time started to spin out of control?
Despite my surprise at arriving here so quickly, I feel truly lucky to have made it to 35. I really cannot believe it but almost 20 years have passed since the death of my dear high school friend... two decades! How surreal. In fact, my husband and I have now survived the passing of multiple friends, a sibling, a parent, all of our grandparents and most painfully of all, several children (not ours) including two of my former students. Somehow our own cards have not yet been pulled, for which I am infinitely grateful.
Back to the shoes though, if I am this saddened by giving them up it makes sense to examine *why* they were so important to me. What do classy black suede heels represent to a woman?
For me, they represent desirability and adulthood. I recall being a very small child sitting in my mother's closet trying on her shoes. My mother always wore heels and she had a large closet full of heels in different colors. The most special pair though were a pair of black suede heels that she could no longer wear because they were too high (four inches) but so completely sophisticated and beautiful, she was reluctant to give them away. They reminded her of her acting career and the lifestyle that had gone with it.
I would slip my little feet into those shoes and try to walk around the carpeted dressing room wearing them, wobbling and having to grab onto the wall or the counter top so I would not fall. This went on for years, until the day finally arrived where by some miracle of DNA I ended up with exactly the same shoe size as my mother... and she began to allow me to wear her heels out for special occasions or on dates. I still remember how excited I was to wear those four inch suede heels at the age of 17, I'm sure I was even more jazzed about them than I was about whatever boy I happened to be going out on dates with at the time.
I suppose it really depends on the woman though! To some women, wearing heels might seem like torture or like bowing to a patriarchal system where women are dressed mainly for the pleasure of men. (Why is it exactly that if you elevate a female leg onto its toes with a little platform on the heel, it supposedly makes the leg look more attractive? Where did *that* notion come from?)
Here is a quote from Wikipedia... clearly not the most authoritative of sources but interesting nonetheless...
"The history of the high-heeled shoe, or a shoe whose heel is higher than the toe, is a matter of contentious and heated discussion. Shoes in general have typically served as markers of gender, class, race, and ethnicity—and both the foot and the shoe have been imbued with powerful phallic and fertility symbols as evidenced in the contemporary practice of tying shoes to a newlywed couple's car. No other shoe, however, has gestured toward leisure, sexuality, and sophistication as much as the high-heeled shoe."
The article goes on to describe a first form of high shoe as worn by upper class Egyptians in 3500 BCE, made of leather and tied together in a pattern meant to represent their ancient ankh symbol for life. Which means that there is a five thousand year tradition of wearing high heels from which I am now irrevocably excluded. Excuse my language, but that kind of sucks!
As far as I can tell there is only ONE good thing about my banishment from the pleasure of high heels.
It forces me to find elegance, femininity and sexiness within myself, to dig deeper for the qualities that those shoes represented to me. In the end, the shoes themselves were just a physical symbol of a larger idea... so I need to find a way to tap into the actual theme and exude the qualities which I prize without actually relying upon their associated props.
Elegance. Femininity. Sexiness. Beauty.
(all somewhere in me ~ no matter what I'm wearing)
Even though I was raised in southern California where a fairly constant emphasis is placed upon taking care of yourself and looking good, I see no reason why women as they age should need to rely upon plastic surgery, clothing, shoes and makeup to hold onto their loveliness.
Yes, we may get wrinkles from laughing or hiking in the sun (both are worthwhile things to do!) and yes, our hair may turn white or gray with time. I'm not saying that you won't see me dying my hair in a few years to hold onto its chestnut hue.
I think though that if we take good care of our bodies and our spirits ~ through exercise, a healthy diet, enough sleep, the giving and receiving of love, and the active pursuit of joy ~ we 'middle-aged' women can still give off the vibe of being young and full of fire!
At least, that's the plan.
I'm a big fan of the poetic advice of Dylan Thomas, so full of energy and passion:
Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
High heels may be done for me forever, but I am not about to fade away.
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