As you may have guessed by the name of the blog, sometimes I wear heels in the snow. Some people, my mother included, have called this silly.

“Those shoes are ridiculous,” my mother would often say as I clacked my way out the front door in a pair of cute, new high-heeled boots.

And that was precisely the point.

My mother wears some form of sneakers or hiking boots pretty much every day, which is not atypical of a Maine woman. There’s nothing I find more uncomfortable than sneakers and hiking boots. They’re uncomfortable to look at and  uncomfortable to wear (I always get blisters and cramps).

In a word: I hate sporty shoes.

Give me my clacky, little pumps with the pretty and completely useless brushed-silver buckle on the toes. Give me my pointy-toe black boots with the skinny, little heel. And if they don’t have a heel, they’d better go above the knee. Anything less would be downright silly.

I find it to be not only practical, but comfortable to be several inches above the slush while everyone else has soggy feet.

Now, if I were anywhere else (like NYC or Boston), no one would even think to comment on my shoes. It’s not exactly like I can afford to be on the cutting edge of fashion, which is really the only reason to comment on someone’s shoes, as far as I’m concerned. Yet, here in Maine, other women almost constantly comment on my choice of shoe, particularly if I’m wearing heels and almost always in the winter.

“I’d break my neck if I wore those,” they say.

“How do you walk in those?” they say.

“You know, there’s ice outside,” they say.

And they’re always the ones wearing some kind of plastic Croc boot in neon green or those hideous L.L. Bean slip-on, huge-soled, uglier-than-death, asexual monstrosities everyone in this state seems to love.

People in plastic shoes shouldn’t throw stones.

My mother sometimes wonders where I came from.

I may have to replace my shoes more often, thanks to salt and uneven bricks, I may have a pair of off-brand Uggs to shovel the walkway in, I may have an entire laundry basket filled with summer shoes and an entire closet floor covered in winter shoes, but I think that makes it obvious: I came from Maine. And I wear heels in the snow.

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