summer of love, with clogs

one summer, when i was about 15, my dad took me shoe shopping in london's soho and i picked out two pairs --black leather clogs and shiny blue doc martens. i loved both shoes so much they were all i wore for about 2 years. then one day, i slipped on a pair of keds and was amazed at how light they felt. suddenly i hated my old shoes, especially my wooden clogs. everything about them was wrong: the way they weighed down my feet, the way they sounded, hollering clog! clog! clog! with every step, and the way they made it hard for me to skip, run, or break into dance... that i was more likely to be sitting in the school library reading sylvia plath than doing any of those things was beside the point.

so i'd been observing the comeback of the clog with mixed feelings.
then last weekend, i tried on some peeptoe clogs at the store No. 6. with slightly elevated heels and a range of beautiful muted colors, they were nothing like my old pair but just as comfortable. and far more elegant than the swedish hasbeens i'd been eyeing all summer with equal parts curiosity and apprehension. so just as abruptly as i had fallen out of love with wooden soles more than a decade ago, i fell back in love with them.


best of all, they've got straps, so i can skip and dance in them too. ohhh can someone play me some music!!