Heels and Arrows
I was lounging like George Costanza on the tattoo table, my jeans rolled up to expose the inside of my left ankle. My best friend was in a chair to my side, cracking jokes to keep me calm as the tattoo artist meticulously placed the stencil for my first tattoo. I braced for impact, and twenty or so minutes later it was done. Over. Dropped. I had my first tattoo.
“Oh my god, Mark, it’s amazing,” my best friend said, using my nickname. I beamed.
A high heel with two arrows crossing through it sits just above my ankle bone, representing the phrase, no, the mantra that I live by: “heels and arrows,” a dichotomy that I have struggled to figure out my entire life. How do I maintain my femininity, something that is important to me, while still feeling powerful, a feeling society has always told me was reserved for men. It felt like I had to choose. Heels and arrows made it so I didn’t have to.
I owe that balance, in part, to my mother…
I was 5 years old I think. I woke up and made my way downstairs. My dad was on a business trip and I couldn’t find my mom. I called for her. Her voice responded to me from the back of the house, my old bedroom from before I was too scared to sleep on a different floor than my parents. She was in the shower, a chisel in her hand, knee deep in bits of tile.
The shower was re-tiled by the end of the weekend.
This was a trend as I grew up, raised mostly by a single mother. If she wanted to rearrange the furniture in our living room or my bedroom, she would do it without blinking an eye. She could paint our living room on her own as easily as she could my toenails. I looked up to her more than anyone in my life when I was growing up, literally and then figuratively once I shot up like a weed in middle school and started to tower over her. I always envied her ability to wear heels every day. I was uncoordinated and awkward, but I wanted the power that they seemed to give her.
I tried to find that feeling in other places. I explored my femininity through my hair, clothes, and accessories. However, I never felt powerful. I was a girl, and that made me feel undeserving of power. I wanted to change that and still be able to love pop music and rom coms and the color pink. On the flip side, I wanted to still be able to enjoy the things that were considered “masculine” while still feeling feminine. As an adolescent and then teenager, this seemed like an impossible feat.
I discovered “heels and arrows” before I had a name for it. I discovered it in books and movies and on television in Buffy, the Halliwell Sisters, the Sailor Scouts. As a kid, these were the females I saw in media that showed me women could be strong, powerful, kick-ass, and feminine. They did things that I usually saw men do. They saved the day on their own, but they wore skirts and dresses and heels. At the end of the day, they found balance. They found heels and arrows.
I am not a superhero. I do not slay vampires. I am not a witch (despite my best efforts). So I had to find my own version of this balance. I found my “heels” by embracing the “girly” things that made me happy: boy bands, pop music, glitter, feminine silhouettes. I found my “arrows” in other ways: forging my way in a male-dominated field, discovering my voice and using it, realizing I was enough and powerful, no matter what mix of “feminine” and “masculine” I am.
I have more tattoos now, each with their own meaning. But every time I look down at my ankle and see that heel and those arrows, I feel stronger and more confident. I am reminded of the fight I put up every day to maintain my personal balance. The balance I have found in the dichotomy of heels and arrows.
