*Note: Written without wireless (Jan 18, 11 AM). Updated after the fact.
Spanish women are wonderful. They start off with a saucy adolescence, mature into fun-loving, but also highly capable young women and age incredibly well, both body and soul. They have a certain something about them that makes you expect them to catch a rose between their teeth at any moment… not a stereotype. I am convinced that I have cracked the code though. The secret to the fierce dignity and flash of these women is in their shoes.
To be precise, it is not in their shoes, but beneath them- if you consider a heel part of the underpart of a shoe. Spanish women wear heels everywhere. In Madrid, in Bilbao, in Seville- it seems to be a unifying factor for mujeres of any degree of class and sophistication in this corner of the world. I walked into Terminal 4 (Domestic Flights) of Madrid's Barajas airport, where the only people that seem to speak English when you have a question are you and God, who is possibly himself still looking for your gate, and the first thing that I noticed were the shoes. Wedged lace-up black boots. Stiletto-heeled knee-high suede pieces. Everywhere, everywhere amazing shoes. And not just incredible shoes, but women that were wearing them well, like they were born to walk on these devastatingly attractive little height machines. It doesn't matter what size or make she is, I have yet to see a single woman here that does not wear heels like a complete and utter professional. Either way, it was at that moment that I was officially glad to be back in Spain.
When I first came to Spain I had brought a single pair of "sensible" heels with me (and some ankle boots that apparently want me dead, not alive). Sensible is a word that American women use when they've given up on wearing amazing shoes and have decided that the definition of a heel should be no longer than one's thumb-nail. British women use it to describe more or less everything, I discovered in London. Westminster Abbey? A sensible piece of architecture. Phantom of the Opera? A sensible bit of a play. Anyway, I fell into the American "sensible" trap and that was a serious mistake. Sensible is not part of the fashion vocabulary for women in Spain (not just because they speak a different language). Fifty-year old women show up to pick up their children from school wearing perfectly tailored blazers, well-fit skinny jeans, and Lou-Vuitton knock-offs. I didn't think it to be much of an important part of my temporary identity though, until I legitimately had a student ask me if I had a problem with my legs, was that why I couldn't wear big girl shoes? A six year old picked up on my cultural fashion inadequacies. That's a low blow- no pun intended.
Either way, I bought a couple of pairs of presentable heels. Now, the only one's left screaming to me are a completely ridiculous, where-will-I ever-wear-these-things pair of low-calf, red suede, leather-striped wedge boots. Every time I see them in the store in my size I quickly recommend them to the closest woman with likely looking feet, who promptly pins my alarming behavior to my apparent American-ness, and hope that she decides she loves them too. If she's Spanish, they'll have a good home.
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