Mary Karr, High Maintenance

Mary Karr, High Maintenance
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/16/down-with-high-heels

About 735 words, 13 paragraphs long

There’s nothing Mary Karr writes that I don’t want to read. In this short essay about her love affair with and divorce from high heel shoes, she does what we have talked about many times: She elevates the objects of shoes and feet, and simultaneously tells several stories at once about what it’s like to have once been a vain, young girl, who has evolved into a sensible middle-aged woman. In Karr’s work, you feel the anger, the energy, the humor, all pulsating beneath the surface. She lacerates herself, promotes herself, mocks herself, expresses disdain for her old self and hope for her (and our) new selves. It’s exhilarating to read her work, even when it’s short. Why is that? I think it’s because she’s so skilled at creating tension, at alternating between paragraphs that describe her nostalgia for her lovely youth with paragraphs that underscore the pain and discomfort of old gnarled feet. It’s sort of a plus/minus system of happiness and unhappiness, beauty and ugliness, wisdom and rue, practicality and ridiculousness, and the overall impact is of a great energy surging through her work.

Let’s take a look at her first paragraph:

This spring, I donated to Dress for Success a box of high heels that I—over decades—almost bankrupted myself for: four-inch sandals with leafy vines that twine up your leg, five-inch leopard pumps I could lurch about five feet in. The money I spent on them might have freed me to retire by now.

Notice the great, specific, universally-appealing detail: The sandals with leafy vines that twine up your leg, the five-inch leopard pumps that were impossible to walk in. We immediately see these shoes, in all their beauty and potential for pain-inducing misery. Karr taps into that universal desire to look gorgeous and sexy, even it’s crippling. This is a positive paragraph, even if it ends in regret over the money she spent on beautiful shoes.

In the second paragraph, she admits to the expensive misery those shoes brought: the expensive plaster foot cast, the bunions, the neuromas. Add on the four-figure plaster foot cast, which gets tossed at year’s end, because the bastards know your beleaguered and bunioned foot will keep spreading like yeasty dough. This is a negative paragraph, full of an ugly (albeit funny) vision of her fat old foot.

In the third and fourth paragraphs, notice how she toggles between fantasy and fury, remembering her high ballerina arches, her evenly tapered toes, her days as a foot model. This is a positive paragraph.

In the fifth paragraph, she describes her feet as “gnarled up like gingerroot.” This is a fresh, memorable and ugly image. Her ass is tired. She can still squeeze into a size four, but only if she sprays herself with Pam: Given new bra technology and some spandex, I can squish stuff in and—spray a little PAM on me—still slither into a size 4. But standing for an hour in heels sets red lightning bolts blazing off my feet. She uses vivid imagery throughout---she never takes the easy way out and writes, “My feet hurt like hell.” Instead, note how she gives us real objects to visualize: Gingerroot, Pam, red lighting bolts blazing. We won’t forget this paragraph or these images.

In the sixth paragraph (now we’re firmly in the middle of this 13-paragraph piece), we get this doozy of a sentence: But no one detailed how those stilettos—named for a dagger—would irreversibly cripple me. This is a startling and disturbing sentence. We worry for her. Is she really crippled? Probably not, but it’s a great teaser of a sentence and it prompts us to read on.

In the seventh paragraph, we have the fusty old Puritan remind our narrator that God would have made her feet look different if S/He wanted her to wear high heel shoes, practical advice Karr dismisses. (As well she should. Following sensible advice doesn’t make for great reading unless it comes at the end of a story.) 

In the eighth paragraph, Karr hones in on the truth all women (and trans men) know to be true: High heels make your legs look awesome and sexy: “For I was a slave to the desire that rules our libidinal culture. And an elongated foot and leg just announces, Hey, y’all, there’s pussy at the other end of this. Yet every pair of excruciating heels also telegraphs a subtle masochism: i.e., I am a woman who can not only take an ass-whipping; to draw your gaze, I’ll inflict one on myself. This is shocking to read---we don’t usually see the word “pussy” in The New Yorker. But it works here---it’s blunt and to the point. There’s great energy in this paragraph.

In the ninth, tenth and eleventh paragraph, Karr throws around some famous, celebrity names: Andre Leon Talley, Michelle Obama, Victoria Beckham. They all have something to say (or show) about shoes. Beckham saves the day by wearing sneakers and saying she can’t do heels anymore. Look at the great, energetic writing that follows: Thanks to her, a woman’s comfort finally meant more than her significance as a brood sow. I hobbled out to buy slides, then shipped off my old tormentors. Parties no longer meant popping anti-inflammatories and slipping heels off under a tablecloth. My feet rejoiced. I snagged every taxi I loped after, took subway stairs at a sprint.

In the 12^th paragraph, Beckham goes back to wearing spike heels, and Karr despairs, calling her feet “large loaves of rye bread”: But recently I spotted Beckham jammed into spikes again. Traitor! Then, at a soirée, a concerned friend asked, “What’s with the shoes?” Looking down, I suddenly saw myself shod in large loaves of rye bread. This is a great, funny, memorable image. Karr mocks herself for embracing comfort and practicality.

In the 13^th and final paragraph, Karr exhorts all women everywhere to throw away their high-heeled shoes. She addresses us and Beckham directly: Oh, womenfolk, as we once burned our bras could we not torch the footwear crucifying us? How about this Independence Day? Our feet and spines will unknot, and high heels will fade from consciousness along with foot-binding and rib removal to shrink your waist. The species may stop reproducing, but who the hell cares. Come back, Victoria. Your sisters await you. Does this last paragraph work? I think so. It’s funny, it’s a bit violent with its references to foot binding and foot removal, and it circles back to Karr’s pint that women have long subjected themselves to a ridiculous amount of pain in pursuit of beauty. It’s a short, intense, memorable piece that manages to incorporate humor, celebrities, sharp writing and smacking good sense.