Walking down a street lined in palm trees, pink clouds against a horizon muddled up with buildings, cars creeping along next to the sidewalk in the heavy summer air—it takes me back.
Heels thud on the sidewalk, with a certain firmness; not that pretty clackety-clack of a less dense ground. Like a chameleon camouflaging into another background, slipping on shoes has the power to alter. One does not feel numb toes when the whole body takes on a rhythm. The legs and hips know their role; legs, hips, and shoes all work together to sway down that sidewalk. She was in a new position, a role as woman. She didn’t look so different from thousands of others—a woman’s form—but she felt unique, and maybe she was.
We are all kind of the same, aren't we? All eye-catching.
Ah to be a new woman, to be seeking out the innate power of it all. We all like a little power—just a harmless taste of it. Just soaking up the ability to stop a conversation simply by walking past. Head held high, the sway of those shoes, the wind through her hair, her scent thrown through the wind, thin hands resting softly at her sides. The grace of it all.
Electric lights are intoxicants. A moth to a flame. There was the city noise and busy activity of lots of humans after nightfall, like a siren call. Young people need that nourishment. An unexplored life needs the lights to either learn about itself, or to follow biology’s instincts. Find a mate. Spread the seeds.
There was a lingering smell. A man smell, still clinging to her. A good smell. She wanted to carry it around and bask in it, taking in all the newness of it. Flashbacks of things put to memory accompanied it - funny little things about the opposite sex that she took in. Such a contrast was the big hands and rough knuckles as they shifted gears. The stubble of facial hair abrasive to her lips and cheeks. The balance of personality between his naturally aggressive movements and her non-confrontational qualities. A hormone cocktail, stirred up nicely, just as it should be.
Undeveloped.
She was a former life. I liked her, but she was undeveloped. She’s more now. I like to think back on her now and then, when the slow moving traffic sits next to me. Young women will be giggling from within a convertible, radio blasting, dusk and all her possibilities on the horizon. The electric lights begin to turn on—the call to assemble. I’m not wearing the shoes, but I feel it still—the hips, the legs, the wind in my hair. The sway and its power.
It’s still lots of fun to be a woman.