Dancing Shoes

The only time I've ever seen my mom dancing was when I was about six years old at a kids' party in the basement of the Maltese Club in Queens. The basement was dimly lit, there was a DJ on the platform and the disco ball was twirling. An 80's song was on and a few adults started dancing - my mom was one of them.

She was wearing green wedge heels that had a golden buckle at the toe. I still remember those heels because I always wanted to wear them, used to tell myself I would someday when my feet grew into them. I remember looking at my mom, who was smiling brightly, her face stretched out. She didn't have wrinkles back then. Her eyes were lit and she looked young. I mean, she was young, maybe twenty-nine, but right there, she looked like she felt young for the first time in a long time. As a kid, I cringed at seeing my mom dance. Yet this image of her dancing, kicking her feet and jumping in place, remained imprinted on my mind, about two decades later.

My mom doesn't go out so much anymore. After we moved out of the basement in New York fifteen years ago, my mom became obsessed with cleaning her house in Malta. She cleans over the clean. Her legs are full of spider veins popping out, black, blue, green and purple. She used to go to the town feasts and shed dress up in pretty dresses, wear high heels, the hundreds of shoes and dresses she owns, tucked in her wardrobes, but shes now stopped going to the feasts. Her feet hurt her.

I drank alcohol for the first time when I was sixteen at my town's carnival street party. My mom had a strict curfew which started at midnight and extended, with time, to three in the morning. I went to my first party when I was seventeen. I wore a red wine skater dress and black heels - my first pair of heels. Afterwards, my friends and I went to a bar known to attract divorced people.

I had my first kiss there, that night, and the guy was thirty. I told him I was eighteen. When I did reach eighteen, my mom didn't like me wearing tight clothes so I'd walk out of the house wearing a top shed approve, then switch tops and leave the original one in the mailbox. I used to drink fifteen drinks in one night. Lots of shots. And I'd drag my friends to the dance floor to dance, stum-bling, unbalanced in my four-inch heels.

I drink socially nowadays, a glass of white wine or a beer on Saturday nights out with friends. When I want to get tipsy, I drink a Long Island Iced Tea. I still like to party and there's a few Latino clubs in Chicago I like to visit. I prefer wearing my green Docs and a pair of jeans to dance, wiggle and twirl around.

When dancing, my body switches on and I'm high, just me and the music, my worries washed away, tomorrow's problem. I'm on my own, alone in the club, with even friends, I single myself out - electricity flows through my body - pure sober breathless dancing. But once it hits 2am, my 25-year-old body feels sore, my feet start hurting me and I need to leave.

Last summer, I visited my parents in Malta and went through my old clothes. I found that first pair of black high heels, all worn out and scratched, one of the heels, bent. Those green wedge heels were there too, in the back of the closet. I carefully took them out and put them on. They fit perfectly. My mom was sitting in the living room, quietly making Christmas stockings even though it was August. My dad was out getting us pizza we ordered for dinner. We planned to stay in and watch a movie.

The heels looked used but still in good condition, still wearable. I took them off and placed them back where I found them. No one would wear them again.

Corrine Zahra