fashion

Why feminists should burn their high heels

July 24, 2007 by Susanne 13 Comments

or at least recycle them.

I really know that there are more pressing social matters than fashion and gender, but somehow I always think of these not so pressing issues first. In fact, I think about them all the time. Which proves how shallow I am (and further proof lies in the fact that I start and finish every single post with I, me, and my). But then maybe these obsessions are only showing my belief that even big issues are made out of a thousand small ones.

So. I have been thinking about fashion again. On one hand this is part of my midlife crisis and the attempt of re-inventing myself, on the other hand fashion is something I used to be very interested in which I then dumped because I thought a) it was too shallow, b) I didn’t have money for clothes anyway, and c) I thought I was too old for fashion. That was ten years ago, by the way, and I have a half written post about that in a notebook. But todays topic are high heels.

When I got pregnant my feet got bigger. That happens to a lot of women. I thought this would be permanent and so I threw away half a dozen pairs of shoes. Some of them I liked a lot, like the shoes I got married in. So I needed new shoes. Since I had thrown away my black pumps and everybody needs black pumps (well, everybody who is female) I then thought about buying new ones. Then I thought again. Because every time I was about to go out, all dressed up and standing in front of the mirror I put on my black pumps and loved the way I looked. And then, nine times out of ten, I’d think about the necessary way to the train station or an evening of standing around holding a glass of wine in one hand, and then I would step out of the pumps and look for my black flats. So I didn’t buy black pumps. I bought black flat Mary Janes.

But now I have a) become more fashion conscious again which you can easily spot by the fact that I have given up on the backpack and now schlepp a big purse around that makes my shoulder ache, and b) my feet have returned to their pre-pregnancy size, and c) I have found four pairs of my old shoes that I had totally forgotten in the basement. So now I am the proud owner of black pumps again. With a 2-inch-heel. And they are Mary Janes of course. Also I have nice little black dress sandals. Also with a little heel. I love the way I look in these. Especially the way my legs look in these. What I don’t like is the way said legs and feet feel when I have worn them for any amount of time. Like last week I felt fancy, and also I was wearing a beige-brown skirt with a brown top and my comfortable sandals are red… I wore the black sandals to preschool. All in all I walked for about twenty minutes. I had three blisters and my hips, knees and back ached. Hm.

I looked at shoe shop windows. Almost every shoe has a heel. A lot of them have stiletto heels. There even are mules with stiletto heels. Hm. Have you ever tried to walk in shoes like these? I have. You have to think about your feet and walking all the time. One careless move leaves you injured on the floor.

I looked at women’s feet: flip flops, sneakers, more flip flops. Hm.

A couple of months ago I bought my first ever copy of “Vogue”. Almost every woman pictured in there wore extremely high heels. I look at the pictures at the Satorialist. I love the blog but nearly all women in the pictures wear high heels, very high heels. I have yet to see a man wearing heels.

Last winter I went into a shoe store and said, “I’d like to buy some nice shoes to wear with a dress or skirt but without a heel, please.” The sales woman showed me a pair. “No ballet flats, please.” Another one. “I don’t want a heel, please.” She, “But that’s not much of a heel.” I, “It’s 2 1/2 inches. If I wear those my back will hurt.” And then she began to rant about todays young women who always wear sneakers and then their feet become all wide and they never will be able to go to the prom in something else than sneakers, and how wearing heels of different heels is good for you. I left the store and haven’t bought a pair of shoes there since.

What I really like is the argument that your feet are getting wide by wearing Birkenstocks or sneakers. See, my feet are very narrow. I have trouble finding shoes that are narrow enough. Even though I haven’t worn anything besides sneakers, Birkenstocks and flat heels for the past five years. And then I thought, “How would a man react if a sales person told him that he should wear heels because this is good for his back?” And how can something be good for my back if it makes it hurt? And, would you let your child wear stilettos? Any heel? Shoes that might make him or her trip? Shoes that are totally rigid? What? You wouldn’t? Why then do you do this to yourself?

Last week my husband and I went to the big city. We walked along the river and I, obsessed with shoes of course, looked at the feet of everyone we passed (and at their bags but that’s another story). Amongst myriads of flip flops (which are not really shoes) I saw a couple before me. She went barefoot with her black stiletto heels in hand. Later we passed them again where there were more people and she again wore her shoes. I remembered the agony of walking in heels. Once I walked for two or three hours in stiletto heels. My feet hurt for days.

My mother crippled her feet with heels. She used to wear nothing but high heels. When she tried to walk barefoot her feet hurt because her tendons or muscles were shortened. Her big toes had been pressed inwards for so many years that she had to have them operated on. Since the operation, by the way, she wears very comfortable and flat shoes too.

So why do we do this to ourselves? Because we want to look pretty. And pretty shoes are hard to find when you look for flats. Comfortable shoes are often quite ugly. Just yesterday as I was walking around in my comfortable sandals the only other women wearing shoes like mine were about 65 or older. That seems to be the usual age for comfort becoming more important than looks. But I think that it must be possible to make shoes that are both comfortable and pretty. Fashion isn’t god-made. It is made by people. That high heels make a woman pretty is a stupid dogma that we have the power to dismantle. If women are asking for shoes that one can walk in, the industry will make them eventually.

Why this is a gender issue? Okay. Imagine a man wearing high heels walking down the stairs at a restaurant. Walking over gravel in the garden. Haha. Well, why isn’t this funny when a woman does it?

So I’m starting a revolution: the high heel boycott. Maybe I’ll even walk into shoe shops and ask for pretty and comfortable flats to wear to a wedding. Anyone in?

How to make a yoga bag

July 16, 2007 by Susanne

First download Amy Butler‘s yoga bag pattern. It’s free and so you suddenly find that you always needed a bag for your yoga mat. Never mind that the yoga bag travels only from the right of the computer desk to the front of the computer desk once a week. Besides, hanging the mat up on a hook would certainly lend a more professional look to your teaching room.

Read the pattern about a thousand times, decide that it’s really easy to make. Convert all the inch measurements into centimeters. Measure your yoga mat thrice to ensure that the bag will be big enough. Start looking for fabric.

Find the perfect exterior fabric only to find that it’s a) silk, b) 50€ per meter. Think about making a 70€ yoga bag for about five minutes three times daily. When your mother-in-law throws the sheets out of the window that she has used to cover the floor for some renovation work, think about whether those sheets might be perfect. Decide against the colorful turquoise-and-orange-and-red-striped with elephants pattern. Go and look for the sofa cover that you put away when you threw the sofa out. Think that you have found the sofa cover which then turns out to be leftover fabric from the making of curtains last year. (That, by the way, might have been the lowest I ever sank in my “sewing career”. I was so fed up with sewing and my machine that I had them custom-made.) So, in order to keep the budget low, decide to make a red yoga bag instead of an orange one like you wanted.

Resume quest for suitable piece of lining fabric. That has to match the exterior. Go on several expeditions eyeing expensive fabric and – this is very important – leave the exterior fabric at home. That certainly helps with the matching. Finally buy a scrap of fabric that’s on sale for 5 € with the rationalization, “Well, if it doesn’t match at least I haven’t spent much money on it.”

All the while look for interfacing. Think that you have very bad interfacing karma. Look for at least a package of thin interfacing. There used to be dozens of these in every fabric department, but nowadays you might go to a store three times without seeing even one. When at last you see some, buy every scrap of it. Vow to buy at Lisa’s store next time. A place where when you say, “I’d like some interfacing because I’m making a bag.” the salesperson won’t look at you with a very puzzled frown and answer, “So, do you need it for appliqué?” “Um, I want to make a bag out of light fabric and I need it to strengthen…” “So, you want this then?” You, meekly, “I guess so.” Just saying. And the bonus: I wouldn’t have had to spend money on three trips to the big city. Paying the shipping from London to Germany would have been cheaper. And you can bet that if you told her what you wanted she just would have known which interfacing to use.

Interfacing. I never know how much to use and which kind because, well, I lack experience and then, due to my shopping woes, I only have used the flimsy kind up until now anyway. But there is something to say for the department store I bought my fabric in because last time, when I left the store clutching my packages of flimsy interfacing and went to have a look at the sewing patterns, I caught a glimpse of interfacing on bolts! Interfacing of different thickness! Wow! Not quite the holy grail, but close.

Next decide to be sensible and put your bag project aside for a month of script frenzy. In July start agonizing about it again. Think about how to cut out something that’s 121,92 cm long. Will it all work out when you round it? Should you make a pattern first? Or not? Then remember that you own a tape measure with inches on it. Decide to make a pattern. Look for some old newspaper because you’re too cheap to buy real pattern making paper.

First day: Cut out paper pattern.

Second day: When a student cancels a lesson, start cutting out the lining. Note that the scissors that came with your new sewing machine (more on that in another post) might be worth 47 £ to someone but not to you since they don’t exactly cut. Get out the old sewing scissors of your husband’s grandmother that you have been using as kitchen scissors for the past ten years. Sigh. Lust for a roto-cutter. Look at pictures of roto-cutters on the internet. Discuss the merit of such cutters with your sister. Decide to be sensible and frugal and use the kitchen scissors instead.

Third day: After waiting for this moment for six days, tell your family that come what may, today’s the day you will cut out your DAMN BAG PARTS! Cut them out on the floor because you don’t want to occupy the kitchen table and your writing desk is too small. Get really distracted by reading the ads on your pattern. Remind yourself to use real pattern paper next time so that you don’t have to look at disgusting “sex on the phone”-offers for hours. Find that not even one angle you have cut out is straight, nor anything. If every single bag part is crooked, will the bag turn out okay? What if the exterior and the lining bag are different sizes? What if the lining bag is bigger than the exterior bag? Calm yourself down so that you won’t have a nervous breakdown with the thought that it isn’t woodwork or rocket science. Since you can’t sew a straight line anyway it will all sort itself out somehow in the sewing. Wonder if this is like when you’re recording something that you just can’t get right and then you just leave it at that, telling yourself you will “fix it in the mix”. (That never works by the way. You can make things better but you can’t make bad things good. Better to start with something good and make it better…) Tell yourself that this is only a practice bag anyway. Stress out about your really complicated dress project that you want to sew after that. Take out Liesl’s backpack pattern, carefully study it and decide that you’re never be able to make it. Then think about altering it because you don’t like magnetic snaps. (I didn’t say I was logical, didn’t I?)

Find that you still have a little time before dinner and start ironing the interface parts to the fabric. After all you decided to use flimsy interfacing on both the exterior and the lining. Find that you have just about enough flimsy interfacing to do this if you practice “patchwork interfacing”. Since you lost all patience when cutting out the interfacing and just did it by rule of thumb and where the scissors hit since it doesn’t really matter if the interfacing isn’t as big as the fabric, everything looks a little, um, sloppy. Remind yourself to next time turn the interfacing right side up before cutting. So when you iron your uneven and crooked pieces of interfacing to your uneven and crooked pieces of fabric at least they pretend to fit. Congratulate yourself that at least you haven’t ironed interfacing to your pressing iron. Find that you can pull off already fused interfacing from the ironing board quite easily. Use the quickly cooling iron to iron a tablecloth and a napkin.

Fourth day: After realizing that two students in a row canceled their lessons plan to start sewing the bag. Meet husband for lunch who then reminds you that the berries are ripe. Sigh. Gather berries, clean berries, don’t finish this because it takes so long, lose hope. When another student calls in sick, find that your husband has prepared all the berries and start pinning and sewing. At the end of the day you will be very tired, have severe neck and back pain, an outer pocket pinned to the main panel of the bag and rows of jam glasses:

Fifth day: Promise yourself to go on slowly and careful, start sewing in the morning, and become quite confident and optimistic. Though everything is quite crooked, it is starting to look, well, like an actual bag. Though very small. With bulging and wavy seams. Like the following:

(Yes, I know that seam allowances shouldn’t look like this.)
Manage to somehow put it all together. A little hint: having uneven and crooked pieces doesn’t really help with the alignment. Spend some time with your son and his friend. Cut your son’ hair when his friend is gone. Find that you still have about half an hour before dinner. Put your son in front of a DVD. Finish bag. Keel over. Write a blog post. Take pictures of finished bag.

Pink – the third

June 10, 2007 by Susanne 14 Comments

I know I have milked the subject of pink shoes or socks enough already, but – today is the day of the May just post roundtable and there will be some new readers coming over to read the story of my son’s pink socks. All because I didn’t write anything else remotely social or just for the whole month. And those new readers – and the old ones as well – will then think that my poor son still suffers and maybe cry a little for him.

(And for those who are new to this and too lazy or pressed for time to follow the links: my son wanted to have pink shoes which I didn’t buy because I was afraid that he would be made fun of at preschool. Then I bought him pink socks. He wore them to preschool once and after being laughed at never wanted to wear them again.)

I’ll continue to be angry at gender inequality, I promise. And right now I have the feeling that maybe little boys don’t have as much choices as little girls. And then they will grow up and become men. And maybe they will be grown men in a society where they still earn more money than women, and do less housework. They might live in a world where a mother has to come home from an important meeting immediately because her child puked so she can mop it up, even when the child is with his father at the time. If said child’s father on the other hand were to be – let’s say – going out with his friends for a couple of beers, and the child got sick, there might be a fat chance that he heard about the incident only the morning after. “Oh, by the way the child will be staying home today, it got sick in the evening.”
(Disclaimer: This is not to be confused with the situation at creative family where master guitarist and creative mother share childcare duties and mopping up. Each of them is considered to be a fully grown parent without need of further assistance.)

So maybe I should shut up about the pink socks. And I will. I only want to write this post to assure you all that my son isn’t sad any more about the pink socks or shoes. He has forgotten the pink shoes entirely. For a four year old he has a remarkable memory so this shows it hasn’t been that important to him. It was important to me. Because I chose to use my powers of persuasion to change his opinion. And though I use my powers of persuasion all the time with my son this time felt a little immoral. Only I didn’t want to have to buy another pair of shoes.

So. His social standing in the preschooler community obviously didn’t suffer much. One boy who had laughed at him because of the pink socks invited him to his birthday party just last week. The little girl who had said to her mother, “The boy is wearing girly socks.” did so not in malice or ridicule but in curiosity. She found it odd and remarkable but not alarmingly so.

I won’t talk to the teachers about this issue because I doubt that there is anything they can do about it. The children already know that they shouldn’t make fun of others. They still do occasionally. They are just trying to figure out how to be social animals. Friendships are forged and broken. At least in this school the atmosphere is very friendly. When we go through the door in the morning there are children shouting, “Hello Leo.” right and left. The children are nice to one another. Unlike my memories of preschool, girls and boys play together often. A boy can play with the dolls or in the doll kitchen without being stigmatized. When I was four years old there was a boy in my preschool who liked to play in the doll’s corner. He never recovered from that. And I went to school with him until fourth grade. I don’t think that something like this could happen in the school my son attends.

Also his teacher told me that she admires my son for being quite independent. She said, “He plays nicely with others though he is quiet and a little shy. He has no problems. And when he has enough or doesn’t want to play what the others are playing he goes away and plays alone.” That made me quite proud. My son is independent and self-reliant. He won’t let himself get coaxed by peer pressure. At least for now.

Those of you with preschoolers and kindergarteners probably know that this is one of the most rigid and conservative phases in life. These children are setting out to learn the rules, and so they like people to stick to them. They try to understand what being male or female means. They try to understand what being a child and an adult means. They try to see the big picture, how people work, how one does things.

So my son goes back and forth between his likings. He declared, “I no longer like pink, I like black and brown now.” a couple of weeks ago. When I told him that one can like all three at once, he said no. You can’t. Just yesterday he declared, “I don’t like black and brown any longer. I like pink better again.”

My son’s biggest ambition right now has nothing to do with clothes but with his deep desire to be master of his own fate. He wants to be grown-up and be able to do everything he can imagine. He just starts to see how rich the world is and what range of things and activities are available to human beings. He wants to grow his own food, make his own clothes, build a space shuttle and travel to the moon, become a knight, have children, and cook.

His most persistent fantasy is that of building his own submarine, build an ocean in the backyard and then live there on his own. So that nobody can tell him what to do. He will be staying up all night, wear his pajamas the whole day and have robots who manufacture everything he desires. (No, he never saw a James Bond movie.) He plans to move out at his fifth birthday, but we can come and visit him. He even told me that I could stay with him in the submarine to travel to Brazil. Or maybe Italy. Or both.

Why it was right not to buy pink shoes for my son

May 28, 2007 by Susanne 38 Comments

You might recall that my son had wanted pink sandals some time ago. And I decided not to buy them and to convince him that blue-beige ones are much better. And I felt rotten for it. And angry. Why can’t my son have pink shoes if he likes them? Why do I have to fear that he will be made fun of? To compensate I bought him pink socks. With horses. And hearts. He loved them. He couldn’t wait to wear them to preschool. But, alas, they had to be washed first. So he had to wait for three long days.

He dressed up with his cute socks and jeans and his new sandals. He told me, “But you will have to buy a pink t-shirt to go with them, you know. I have to have a pink t-shirt.” Okay.

He went to preschool. When I asked him in the evening, he told me that everybody loved his pink socks. That he really needed a pink tee. Have you ever tried to find a pink t-shirt without ruffles or something? Just a plain t-shirt. Not too girlish? Not too expensive, too, since I didn’t know how long he would like to wear it. What I saw in the department store made me glad to have a boy. There was not one t-shirt that I liked. (And I remembered why I keep buying my son’s clothes out of a cataloge. It’s not only the girl’s clothes that are ugly.) So I tried the second hand store. And found a pink t-shirt like this for 2 €:

Of course this had to be washed too so he couldn’t wear it the day after I bought it. But he had his socks. The next day we arrived at preschool, late as often, and a little girl sat down beside him. She told her mother, “The boy is wearing girlie socks.” And he showed her, proudly. In the evening he was very sad to learn that his socks had to be washed since they were very, very dirty. A few days later I told him they were ready to be worn again and that he could wear his new pink tee with it. He had loved the tee when I showed it to him. Then he said, “No, I don’t want to wear the socks or the t-shirt to preschool.” “Why?” “L. and F. made fun of me.” It turned out that a couple of kids had laughed at him because of the socks. And that everybody had been talking about it for days. Obviously a boy wearing pink socks is a very hot topic for preschoolers.

And that was it. He didn’t even want to wear the t-shirt or the socks on weekends. They are tainted with the laughter of his peers.

This makes me sad. I’m even sadder because I saw it coming. Of course I could have prevented this but then I thought, “Maybe it’s not that bad.” And that everybody should be able to wear the color he or she likes. I’m still angry that I’m living in a society where people can’t wear the colors they like. Not even when they are only four years old. I knew that preschoolers and kindergarteners are highly conventional. You can’t really blame them, they learn their values from the adults around them. Women do housework, men can work with computers, women are bad at math, men can’t sew, women always want to be pretty, men don’t care how they look, blablabla. As if there were no individuality.

Or am I the only one who thinks that gender inequality is creeping back?

(Edited to add: Since there were so many comments on this post where people felt sad for my son I wrote yet another post on this to round it all up: Pink – the third)

So I did yet another project

April 30, 2007 by Susanne 16 Comments

I’ve been quite busy for the last few days. We’re working on some home improvement projects (I’ll probably post about them when they’re finished), we have been de-cluttering insane amounts of books and then I have been rediscovering my passion for bags. It all started with the fact that I bought a couple of new chocolate-brown clothes because of the fashion paradigm-shift. And despite just having bought a new purse in 2005 I had to get out and get another one. A black or brown one. Well, that was easily done though I had to settle for something affordable instead of the most beautiful purse I found. 380 € for a purse did seem a little much. So everything would have been well, I have a new purse which I like very much and I’ll still be able to buy groceries for the next weeks, but then I became hooked on a bag-making blog:

The bags are gorgeous, the blog is cheerful and visually stimulating, and best of all blogger Lisa is offering free tutorials on the blog.

So I went a little crazy and thought, why don’t I make myself a bag. An easy one like the big grocery bag with stuff sack. And she said it would take only one hour!

I went up into the attic and spent about an hour unearthing leftover fabric. I found something green and something purple which told me that the last time I sew must have been about twenty years ago. Apart from curtains and such. The next day I went to the local craft supplies shop. Well, I hope I’ll someday remember that it’s never a good idea to just go out and buy local where I live. What I needed was some fleece for padding and a bolt snap. Ha! There was exactly one snap, golden, ugly, heavy, and expensive and they didn’t have the right fleece. I bought some other lining because I didn’t want to leave the shop empty-handed, went home and decided to use what I had on hand. (Later I found a better snap at the hardware store…)

On my so-called “day off”, which means about 90 minutes of free time, I fetched my ironing board, iron (which hadn’t seen daylight for about two years), and sewing stuff.

I used an old newspaper for the pattern and started cutting the pieces out. Two hours later I was the proud owner of this:

Though I had to cut out one piece twice because I had forgotten to add the seam allowance to the top of one of the pieces, I didn’t dawdle. I think I might be what the Austrian author Christine Nöstlinger calls a “Haushaltsschnecke” (that’s household snail). Everything I do that has to do with housework seems to take ages. (On the other hand I think that having better tools might have helped with speed.) And speaking of seaming allowances, if it says, “Add seaming allowance to all pieces” then just add it. Don’t think you’re so clever and can leave it off. You might end up with a cozy that’s just a little too small. Just saying.)

After that day which I had devoted solely to the sewing project I was deeply frustrated and remembered why I had stopped sewing decades ago. I already knew that sewing projects require a lot more time doing things like ironing and pinning and thinking and then cursing because you just can’t figure out how the pieces are supposed to fit together than sewing time, but this was a little disheartening.

Since I absolutely wanted to finish this, though, I pulled everything out again on Sunday plus the sewing machine, and continued. First I finished the cozy. Well, I thought I had finished the cozy before I found out that I had to rip it up again because I had sewn it together wrong (I didn’t take a picture of this). But then I had this:

Progress! Then I tackled the difficult part. This is a picture of the half-finished lining bag (there wasn’t enough of the greenish fabric so I had to make it bi-colored):

And I really should have sewn the lining bag first because now I have an exterior bag with sewn-in folds where there shouldn’t be folds and a lining bag that’s smooth and perfect…

But eventually I was finished. It took about six hours for those of you interested and while having a cheap sewing-machine is better than having none there was a lot of frustration because the machine refuses to sew anything that might be a little thick. It just gets stuck and has to be persuaded by sheer force to transport the fabric. But who cares because now I have this:

Look at the interior:

And while I learned that sewing is something that needs lots of free time, a clear mind, and a room where you can leave the machine and the ironing board for a while, and more patience than I ever thought I might have, I also might be infected with the bag making bug.

Freedom

April 24, 2007 by Susanne 16 Comments

Every time we tell people that we don’t own a car they say, “Oh, I could never give up my freedom like that.” Okay. So for most people having a car equals freedom. They probably have an image in their heads like driving down the highway in a convertible with flowing hair. In summer. Not another car in sight. Like a car commercial. They think of speed and agility and power and strength. Not of being stuck in traffic looking for a parking space when you’re late and everyone wants to go shopping at once.

(Before you think I’m all “holier-than-thou” I have to add that my mother-in-law owns a car. It is sitting in our garage and we share it. But when this one dies (and it’s an old car) there won’t be a new one. For the money it costs to just have it sitting in the garage you can take a taxi to the grocery store every time and buy a piano on top of that.)

But I didn’t want to write about cars though I could go on and on, I wanted to write about what gives me a feeling of freedom. First it’s this:

It’s not because they are red though it helps. These shoes are a symbol to me. A symbol that I value myself enough to buy myself real comfortable shoes. They tell me that I can walk everywhere. That I am strong and capable. And independent. I’m not dependent on a machine; I can just walk away whenever I choose to. And my feet could carry me to China and back again. It would take a little while, I know; that’s why I’m not walking everywhere. But for my everyday life I can shop, go to preschool and back, go for a walk in the woods and all I need are those shoes. They are special walking shoes. For nordic walking to be precise, though I don’t do this often (haven’t pulled my sticks out in half a year or so). My feet don’t hurt. When I was in my twenties and had moved to the city my feet always hurt. In cities you have to walk a lot more than in the country. Then I discovered walking sneakers. With expensive shock absorbing thingies in the heels. Ha! When I visited a friend in Berlin and we went sight-seeing one day from 9 to 3 we came home and she lay down on the floor with her feet up on a chair saying, “My feet are killing me.” And I stood next to her thinking, “Well, my feet do feel a little uncomfortable, come to think of it.” And that was all.

The next thing that gives me a feeling of freedom is this:

I know, it’s not very pretty. Though it is red which is always good. I bought it when I was at my biggest. Right now I’m waiting for oversized jackets to come into fashion again.

I had wanted a gore-tex jacket since 1990 when I first discovered that there was such a thing. What I love about this jacket is that I can wear it all year round. It has a fleece jacket inside that you can zip out when it gets warmer. It is light, it is rain-proof but you don’t feel like you’re wearing a plastic bag. When I’m out walking and it starts to rain I just pull the hood up and I’m comfy again.

Every day when I’m bringing my son to preschool I have to smile when I see the other parents struggling with finding parking space and fiddling with keys, car seats and safety belts. My son and I just walk there. Quite slowly because he’s only four. Then I say goodbye to him for the day and there’s this feeling of freedom rushing in. I zip my jacket and just go. Often I take a detour for the sheer joy of walking. I move, I can think, I feel the air on my face, the pavement under my cushioned shoes – bliss. It’s even better when I got for a walk in the woods. Unencumbered I just walk and look and think. It makes me happy.

There was a time when I felt guilty about this sudden feeling of bliss and freedom I have at the door of preschool every day but then I remembered the times before my son was away from home five days a week. I remembered the walks I took with him. They were the only form of exercise I did in those days. I put him in the stroller, donned my walking shoes and my trusty jacket and started walking. And I felt the same feeling of elation. Even if he spent most of the walk screaming, it was worth it. When he was a baby I often put him in the sling. Then I could even walk in the woods. Or go to the city. I could laugh at stairs and narrow doors. I would just keep on walking. Stepping over obstacles. Free. Strong. Independent.

So don’t tell me freedom is about convertibles or motorcycles. I’m really not one of those women to whom it’s all about shoes but in this case shoes are very important. Shoes one really can walk in. Free.