I appreciated today’s poem for many reasons: it taught me something new, it proved me right about something I knew all along, and it resonated with me because I’m tall.

I was talking with my hairdresser (another tall gal) not too long ago while getting a badly needed haircut about a random conversation I had with some students in my class at the end of the day on picture day.  One of the girls (also tall) was astonished to see I was wearing heels.  She asked me why I would bother wearing heels.  I then glanced at her feet and saw she was wearing flats and I recognized my young self hiding in her.

I explained that once upon a time I only wore flat shoes because I was already tall and didn’t want to stand out in the crowd any more than I already did.  Plus I am clumsy (on a regular basis) and thought heels would be too dangerous for me.  BUT then after I grew up, I realized everyone knew I was tall and wearing heels wouldn’t change that one way or another.  It wasn’t fair that others should be the only ones that got the cute shoes (and there were certainly cuter shoes being made in bigger sizes I could actually wear at the time I had this epiphany–not so much when I was growing up, as I was consigned to “old lady” type shoes in high school, as my brother used to call them).  I learned to walk in heels (which wasn’t that hard after all) and I learned not to get dangerously thin or long heels and I was fine.  Plus, I told her, heels sometimes just bring an outfit together.  She marveled at this and I could tell a light bulb had gone off for her.  My hairdresser and I both wished that someone had told us that same thing when we were younger!

What does all of that have to do with today’s poem?  WELL, I found this poem shortly after that conversation and I liked the long legs in it (it resonated with me because of my “tall” issues, I guess you could say).  I also didn’t realize that a Daddy Long Legs wasn’t a spider (scientifically speaking), though I knew they couldn’t hurt you.  I oft quoted the old wives’ tale about killing one causing rain when I was younger to my siblings or younger children intent on squishing them.

The only thing that could make this poem better would be to see high heels on every leg of the Daddy Long Legs.  😉