The Sashay

Years ago, while I was working on a book, I bought a pair of gorgeous, high-heeled, hot pink mules. 

They were a silly impulse buy, designed for someone else’s lifestyle, and someone else’s feet. You see, after the birth of my children, my relatively easygoing size 41s morphed into square, constantly grumpy size 42s. From one day to the next they refused point blank to be smushed into anything that wasn’t flat, wide and designed for comfort. Today they might tolerate a butter-soft, extra-wide ballerina, or maybe a flat, suede boot, to be worn on very special occasions, and even then, only under duress. 

That’s if I can find a pair in my size.

With eight-centimetre heels, those hot-pink mules were far too high for me. They were also far too narrow, and at least half a size too small. But I fell in love with them, and thought they’d look cute with rolled-up jeans. Maybe they’d stretch? Maybe I’d learn to walk in heels again? Maybe it really was just a matter of forcing myself to wear “real” shoes? And maybe if I wore them around the house, I’d get used to them? Also, maybe they’d help me reconnect with the cute little sashay I’d had in my twenties?

So I wore them around the house. Except I didn’t go “around” the house. I just sat in front of my computer for five hours a day, struggling to get the story I had in my head onto the page, with the pink mules dangling seductively off the tips of my toes, à la Carrie Bradshaw.

Seductively?!

Here’s the thing: Carrie Bradshaw had perfect little feet. Her cool shoes matched her cool words. My clodhoppers just wanted out. And my brain whirled endlessly, stuck in panic mode for two, endless years.

I didn’t sashay. I fell flat on my face.

The hot pink mules left my wardrobe long ago. I gave them to a friend with smaller feet and outstanding sashaying skills. They lived a long and glamourous life with her, going to fancy restaurants, travelling to faraway places, dancing under glitter balls in New York, London, Paris, Verbier, and were last seen in the piano bar of a fancy hotel in Capri.

As for that manuscript, it lives in a drawer in my desk. It has a good title and might have been decent if only I’d been able to get out of my own way.

Strangely enough, one of the minor characters in the book, an elderly, feisty Sicilian lady called Signorina Giuseppina, has recently started waking me up in the middle of the night. Giuseppina has a deep, gravelly, smoker’s voice and a surprisingly high-pitched giggle. Born in the mid 1920s in the seaside village of Cefalù, she was a staunch advocate for women’s rights. She showed her rebellious streak early on by opening a scandalous little boutique selling lingerie and swimwear, and she was proud of having been the first woman in Sicily brave enough to wear a bikini on the beach in the early 1950s. She had plenty of friends but lived alone, collecting boyfriends like they were shells on the beach. Giuseppina never married, but something tells me she might have been in love with a married man. She had a canary called Adriano Celentano, grew her own vegetables, swam in the sea all year round, made a killer Cassata, and loved to get all dressed up and take to the dance floor in the village square whenever there was a “ballo liscio”.

I bet Signorina Giuseppina had a world class sashay and that she’d have rocked my hot pink mules, don’t you?

Maybe one day, when I’ve finally finished the manuscript that I’m working on, I’ll find out. Giuseppina sounds like she might be cool to hang out with for a year or two!

I’m not sure how to end this, so I’ll simply leave you with a fun song from 1983 called Talking in Your Sleep by the Romantics that I hadn’t thought about in years until it popped up in my head right now, just when I needed it. Ooh, my sashay was killer back then! Do you remember this song?