Why I (Sometimes) Wear High Heels

Shoes from Yo Amo Los Zapatos

Things are sodden here in the south of England after the rain we've been experiencing.   Someone in the sky keeps turning on the tap.  The full regalia of wellingtons, galoshes or indeed fisherman's wading boots would have been preferable at the weekend when I went squelching through mud that oozed over the top of my normally serviceable walking boots.

Indeed, the wearing of anything as ridiculous as heels was furthermost from my mind - until I  got back home, washed out mud-dribbled socks, then looked at some of the Facebook photos of a couple of new South American friends to the A Woman in Goggles band page.   Clearly, they were shoe crazy, having posted nothing but pictures of exotic footwear from Yo Amo Los Zapatos - the Spanish language version of the Shoelovers website.  Curiosity won out and I clicked on the mouse to see what all the fuss was about.  And there in its splendour was all manner of vertiginous walking gear - beribboned, bestrapped, bebuckled, and impressively beheeled.   

Somehow, I've never completely subscribed to this Woman-as-Shoe thing, witness the sorry contents of the wardrobe.  Let's see, I must possess something approaching close to (ballpark figure) three pairs of high-heeled shoes.

But.  However.  Still...

Why I Wear High Heels

To look taller, of course:

create plinths for my legs

so they can masquerade

as objets fashioned by Bernini;

to shock complacent feet

out of jam-like spread,

streamline them

and keep them on their toes;

to seduce my gait

away from its forward intent,

teach it to rock to the lateral

in a slow pendulum sway;

to click in a tight secretary skirt

down the waxed corridors

of the Johnson Building,

Racine, Wisconsin, circa 1950;

to liberate the calligraphy

trapped in stilettos,

inking circles and swirls

on wood as I dance;

to gain vantage over hedges,

whose shadows hide

the ploughings left

by serfs in their fiefs;

to lift into the burl

of the west wind,

bump the top of my head

on the underside of wings;

and every night,

removing high heels,

to stand down,

find the earth once more.

© Katie Griffiths