the Carpe Diem shoes

(c) photographs by Claudia Levin

Browsing my Facebook feed this morning, I was stopped at the sight of these two photographs, taken by Claudia Levin, with the short text: “I left the house and in front of the door... shoes that tell a story.”

Associatively, intuitively, I saw violence, rape, exploitation, pain, tears, and sadness in my mind’s eye. I started to comment something in that direction, but then I stopped.

Yes, the shoes tell a story – but maybe it’s a story of midnight pleasure, of taking the shoes off with a loud laugh and walking barefoot home, feeling the cool asphalt.

Maybe she was alone, maybe on a pleasantly surprising first date which continued until dawn, maybe with a partner, or friends.

Maybe she was sad, maybe she lost her cat and couldn’t continue walking in those high heels, while searching for the cat. Or dog.

Or – maybe she finally understood the physical price she’s been paying for years for wearing such high heels and decided right then and there to just shed them off her forever.

And yes, maybe the story is that of my first association – of violence, of a woman in prostitution badly beaten, or a woman dragged to a corner to be viciously raped, losing her high heels while her feet scratched the sidewalk.

And maybe none of the above.

Why am I writing this post? Just a feeling that I wanted to put this in writing, to document. For some reason, after thinking about them all day, these particular shoes and the way they are positioned in the middle of the sidewalk, seem to tell a very special story. And my gut feeling is that the story has a good end as dawn breaks. A feeling that their owner whispered into the night, to no one in particular but herself, “carpe diem” as she was taking them off. Just a feeling.