These boots were made for walking

​For whatever reason, I might call it a whim, I dug all the way down to the bottom of my chest of drawers when I packed for parents’ weekend.

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Oh sure, I had pulled from my usual staple of presentable yet comfortable duds, the going-out wear that I think looks a little more put-together than the wrinkled mess my weekday self can seem to manage, as well as a few pieces of athletic wear that I would most definitely don should a gym (or a nearby park) present itself.

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But I also folded a fancy skirt and a vintage pair of dress boots into my luggage.

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I don’t know why I thought to do it, really. “Dressing” just for dinner isn’t usually something I do.

In fact, the last time I wore a dress was for a funeral several years ago.

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“Options,” I told myself, while thinking it might be an odd pang – like a craving – to wear the boots again.

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They are black leather, knee-high boots with a square toe box, side zippers, and synthetic liners. They aren’t what I would call fancy, but with a little polish and very little circumstance, I think they pull my outfits together.

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They have also proven to be just as comfortable as my cushiest running sneakers.

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In fact, when a stress fracture forced me to take an eight-week rest from running nearly a decade ago, my beloved dress boot not only matched the height and comfort of the therapeutic boot the doctor prescribed, it almost made me forget I was injured.

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For the life of me, I can’t remember where or when I bought them. It just seems as if I’ve always had them. They are like old friends, the kind that will walk for miles with you in any kind of weather.

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And that’s what I was trying to explain to my daughter as we found ourselves jogging to make our seven p.m. dinner reservation.

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The nostalgic me wanted to share the time-tested quality over quantity wisdom, and impress upon her how magical it was to happen upon the holy grail of finding shoes that will carry you comfortably for more than thirty years.

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To her credit, she didn’t roll her eyes. Though she might have, had she known that not twenty minutes earlier, I’d found a hole the size of a nickel along the zipper’s end grain. Probably the work of a mouse.

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And I didn’t let on, seventeen blocks from where we started,  just one measly corner away from our dining destination, the strange burning sensation on the ball of each foot felt like it was about to catch fire.

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Experience kept me from blaming the shoes, so I quietly cursed my socks. Somehow, they were rubbing something the wrong way.

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But alas. When the night had ended and I sat with my legs in figure four, pulling the boots off by the tip of the toe with one hand, and the cup of the heel with the other, I saw the hole. When I checked the other boot, I found another hole to match.

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“I’m sure you could have the soles replaced,” my husband offered dutifully. He’s not opposed to buying new, but he understands the value of familiarity and sentiment, if not the difficulty of finding heels that don’t try to murder you every step of the way.

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I know the boot company is still in business, and that it might be cheaper to buy a replacement than seek a partial reconstruction. I’m even hopeful that I’ll get another thirty years out of the new pair since I know these boots are made for walking.

Welcome to the resistance

When I say it in my head, the voice I imagine twirls the vowels into tendrils with an unconvincing French accent. My inability to maintain the vocal affectation starts to trail off into a cartoonishly French onomatopoeia: 'Huhhuhhuhhhh'.

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I can understand how offense could be taken. And to speak frankly, I would seek to mitigate subjecting strangers to my stereotypical portrayal of modern anti-fascists.

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That doesn’t always mean staying silent.

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As I doom scroll through the morning update, my nerves fraying anew at headlines such as:

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How FEMA Is Forcing Disaster-Struck Towns to Fend for Themselves

and

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Trump Names More Foes He Wants Prosecuted as Bondi and Patel Look On

from The New York Times

and

Johnson describes planned No Kings rally as ‘hate America,’ ‘pro-Hamas’ gathering

From Politico …

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No matter where our cursors take us, the default response to what we find upon arrival seems to be a string of not-so-colorful curses.

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I find myself oddly delighted by the photographs trickling in from the so-called  battle stations: sidewalks and parks where people exercising their rights to speech exercise them as loudly as possible.

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In city after city, the images stop the motion of militarized agents, camouflaged, masked, and armed, confronting groups of gray-haired protestors whose leadership.

appear, at least in some of these editorial dispatches, to be wearing the uniform of an inflatable amphibian.

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Moving pictures streaming virally through the interwebs that connect TikTok with whatever social media sites people of advanced age can miraculously manage, it would seem the news from our modern exodus is powered by pointed preposterousness.

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Armed with tubas and trumpets, these antagonistic Americans torment their would-be oppressors with the stinging sounds of March of the Stormtroopers or the wah-wah of a Sad Clown medley.

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The last time I stood along the street holding a sign, I marveled at the artful ingenuity of the people who had assembled around me. My missive, though melodic when said aloud, had too many words. It wasn’t nearly as elegant as one of my righteous neighbors held, which depicted an amazing likeness of the POTUS who would be King, complete with a liberal slathering of spray tan using just a few turbid brush strokes.

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I’d like to think our democracy is capable of surviving this transparent campaign to dismantle it. But I fear our heads are so deep in the sand that we can’t just pull them out unscathed.

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But we have to keep trying. We need to continually remind ourselves that the good guys don’t always win in the end, and we still need to do the hard and frightening work of dissent.

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If for nothing else than for the written and photographic evidence that will eventually become this lamentable time’s permanent record of misdeeds and horrors.

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As we should keep showing up for each other ... not just to witness the injustices, but to celebrate the successes, too. We should bring our floogle horns and our frog suits wherever they can lighten the mood.  

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And if you need a conversation starter, think about wearing a smiley-face t-shirt or an inflatable suit, if you’d like to be more formal.

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A little cheek goes a long way.

Seen and not heard

 It’s been a month and ten years since I’ve set eyes on my son.

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I’m not counting that single, solitary post on social media – a wobbly picture of him and some friends in the purple light of an all-ages night spot, which, after a few seconds of video vibing, freezes on the top-most section of his unruly curls.

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Or at least I assume they are his. I can’t be entirely sure.

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But, I had to admit, the sighting set my mind at ease.

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Not only had I missed sneaking all the delicious desserts and snacks I stopped buying *FOR THE KIDS* once they left, but I missed his face and his voice and his quiet, midnight raids of the refrigerator.

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The people wearing branded college gear at the orientation advised us to make a plan. Agree upon how often we would communicate … and what form it would take. Would it be a weekly phone call? Semi-weekly? A few text messages strategically sent during schedule breaks when we are sure our students aren’t sleeping, or eating, or finally able to get a shower in the tiny bathroom they share with as many as 10 other students.

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I had hoped for a once-a-week call at a time of his choosing. Pictured sitting around the phone broadcasting to the kitchen as he recounts all his new experiences with boundless enthusiasm, even if I knew the kid we sent off to school would rather just say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and shrug into the microphone.

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He isn’t his sister, who will take whatever question I ask and weave it into a story she’s more willing to tell me. She seems to know innately that HOW she says things to her parents often matters more than what she tells us.

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Not that I blame him.

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Of course, I would settle for one-line replies to texts. And he would oblige four to six follow-up thought bubbles before he would just leave it on read.

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Though we want to know they are happy and thriving, making friends and feeling their formerly small worlds slowly crack open into a panoply of prismatic color, asking for that reassurance directly can be … well …  infuriating.

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No one is perfect.

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I wonder how I forget such things when I STILL experience this feeling of exasperation at the prospect of answering well-meant, ice-breaking questions like: “How was your day?” or “Did you win your 5K race?”

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It can also feel like the pain of a thousand jabs if things aren’t going as expected.

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Lately, I can understand the impulse to scream at the top of our lungs STOP ASKING ME HOW WAS MY DAY. That’s my business. Mine. I’m not even sharing a taste for you to chew on.”

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If I can manage to stave off impulse long enough to take a deep breath, maybe I could gather wits and recall, in intricate detail, the story of how I really, really wanted nothing more than to buy a devil’s food sheetcake, the kind with the vanilla frosting loops in one straight line along the center, and eat the whole dang thing.

Once around The Block

With our kids out from under our roof, and only the lowest-maintenance cats on the prowl with its walls, my husband thinks NOW is the perfect time to be together … somewhere else.

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Somewhere, our worries will have to jog to keep up with us.

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I felt it was my duty to support his cause, even as I worked all diplomatic channels to ensure we weren’t spending days in transit or dipping into non-discretionary funds.

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We had been lucky thus far. Forecasts had called for a washout, and we had yet to feel even a drop.

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This is the third “vacation” we’ve taken this year, and I am trying all the things I can think of to keep superstition and the fates at bay.

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All of it felt .. performative.

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Luck, in my mind, anyway, is always a coin toss.

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I was trying to breathe in deeply and exhale with a matching force. In a few minutes, I would go for a run; the distance wouldn’t be far. Just a little more than a mile to a place that friends had recommended would serve up THE BEST DONUTS on the Island. Then we would visit the farmer’s market, hike to the Coast Guard Beach, and experience a mudslide (the cocktail, not the calamity),

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My husband had a list. After visiting Payne’s “Killer” Donuts - which were perhaps the best donuts of all time - he wanted to try out the 25th Best Fudge in all of America at Blocks of Fudge before dinner.

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There was also the matter of renting bikes and visiting at least one of the four Lighthouses before nightfall.

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I wanted to be done with everything and be back in time to make the 8 o’clock showing of whatever the Empire Theater was screening, so I could pet the dog who lounged around the ticket booth, loosely tethered to the ticket booth with a sandbag, while the owner shot back and forth from the concessions counter.

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By the look of them, I’d never have imagined the 133-year-old seating would be comfortable until I slid into mine, and the cushioned seat part gently glided forward.

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As the lights went down and the projector started to roll, I felt like I could just sit there forever basking in the glow of … whatever dystopic adventure (that could become reality sometime soon) was playing.

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The thought occurred to me that I might even be able to relax here.

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The sun rose over the marina, just east of where I could see from the window of our hotel room.

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Its light wrapped around, bathing my view in a gentle wash of pink, just enough to make me worry about what the weather would bring.

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I’m happily surprised that instead of a storm, the pretty skies brought out a local man into our new favorite coffee shop. He wanted to show off how pretty his chickens’ eggs were. We could all use some more kind words.

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I was glad we came to this island, a place neither of us had ever been during our combined century of family trips to New England. It is so beautiful. The landscape sprawls out, inviting us to leave our car behind and walk and bike farther than our eyes can see. Where we zoom past historic houses zhuzhed up with just a few new cedar shakes and a fresh coat of paint.

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Time isn’t exactly still here, but it just feels more steady.

Harm's way

When President Donald Trump, atop his bully pulpit on Monday, stumbled over the pronunciation of acetaminophen while making his entirely unfounded claim to American women, and, by extension the world, that his administration had absolutely decided without any evidence whatsoever that the drug, when taken during pregnancy, was linked to autism, further instructing that pregnant women should “tough it out” without pain relief or fever reduction, the headlines kept the story aloft as if batting an air-filled balloon between warring toddlers.

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Is it safe?

Presented with this bald-faced lie, the media dug in with all the myriad facts it could muster. These include the known warnings that all drugs can have unwanted effects and that those effects have to be considered against the potential harm of the thing the drug is treating or trying to prevent.

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What can pregnant women do for pain or fever?

They should ask their DOCTOR, not a word salad-spewing former game-show host and his snake-oil selling pals, none of whom seem at all concerned with actual public health.

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The man tweets something out, and entire industries make his words law overnight.

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There is no waiting … except for, maybe, a doctor’s office visit to obtain a prescription for a seasonal vaccine to protect you and your loved ones from preventable illnesses that the government, for no reason other than spite, might now require.

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With all the lather, rinse, and repetition … you’d think our hands would be cleaner.

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But no. It’s all about gumming up the works.

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Where women have legitimate fears and concerns about their healthcare, we now have charlatans in charge … people without a pedigree that should never have been elevated to committee chairs. Instead of due diligence, they are selling raw milk, and treating infections with remedies from farm supply stores. They are acting as if all the answers reside in originalists' remedies.

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Which makes me truly fearful for our kids … who have lived into adulthood because of vaccines and safer remedies for fever reduction – like Tylenol – that studies proved were not linked to Reye's syndrome.

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Like the president just said, pregnant women can prevent autism if they just suffer a little more.

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Maybe one day they will make Leeches and Blood Letting relevant again.

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I worry that the state will turn the endurance of suffering from a matter of faith into a punishable offense if they even suspect suffering had been avoided.​

I hope not.

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But hope, set aside from reason, is something that has a harder time floating lately.

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It shouldn’t be a surprise in a country awash in guns and that is sliding towards authoritarianism, that hope has a lead lining. Why else would our government elevate one political killing over all others? Weaponize it and call for revenge on his enemies?

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In answer to this, more than 50 Democratic representatives signed onto legislation honoring a right-wing activist whose life’s work professed free speech for conservatives to repeat racist, misogynistic tropes, and creating a watch-list for liberal professors to be targeted for harassment.

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It’s not enough to condemn the violence. Of course, it could be if we also got rid of the guns.

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Strong-armed people are not free. And debate isn’t a remedy for a healthy democracy. Although the people doing the strong-arming might be thinking that democracy is the illness they most wish to eradicate.

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Why else would we stay so quiet when they are screaming the ugliest things out loud?

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Maybe it’s because we have debated ourselves into harm’s way.

The Scoop Wars

“I see you got the Whisker 4000 SX,” my neighbor nodded.

It probably wasn’t an exact quote, but it’s what I thought I heard as I tilted my head and stared blankly at her over the fence.

I understood the words individually, but when strung together, they lacked meaning.

“I must have missed an important context. What now?”

“Evidently, you missed the package the delivery truck dropped on your front porch this morning … it looks like you guys got a kitty litter robot.”

“Not guys,” I think sourly. One. Guy.

The H.U.S.B.A.N.D.

He’d be The Guy.

The next realization caused me to erupt into flames.

I know we discussed this ….

We talked about the potential of investing in an automated poop raking machine not only to improve my life (as the chief pooper scooper), but also the lives of our kind and generous neighbors with whom we’ve traded pet care for years. It might also improve the air quality, especially during the summer months when the stifling, odoriferous air tends to stagnate in that part of the house, making the prospect of receiving guests mortifyingly unpleasant.

But aside from the smelly cats, and the man’s guilt reflex being even more reactive than his gag reflex, I had reservations.

The $600 price tag was a big one.

I thought changing cat litter and resolving to scoop at least once a day would be sufficient.

I mean … Even if we didn't have college and car payments and a faltering economy to worry about, I feel like I said quite clearly that I didn’t want to purchase another electrified gadget that measured and analyzed a formerly analog chore that had historically fallen on me to perform.

But the neighbor was right. There it was. On the porch. Blocking the door.

Where would it even fit? The way I saw it, we would have to reconfigure the cats’ powder room (a hallway utility closet) to accommodate its size, which is comparable to a standard washing machine.

I didn't want its smirking, smart technology showing off OR sending reports into the cloud that I would now be required to follow and obsess about.

I certainly didn’t want to be the one to troubleshoot the equipment or re-train the cats.

RE-Train the cats?

I didn’t even have that on my radar until finding a urine-soaked pet bed three days after he’d set up the machine, sans directions.

“One of our fearsome felines is not happy about your new amusement poop ride,” I groused, depositing the sodden textile into a trash bag.

He scratches his head.

“Maybe … it’s the height,” I suggest. The cat is getting older, maybe it's harder for her to make that higher leap? Or maybe the problem is the channeled step, designed to separate the litter from the little paws. Like a grate, the sensation may be something she’d like to avoid?” Perhaps we’ll have to cover it with something so she’ll use it to make the step up?”

With a satirical wink and nod to his mastery over the situation, he was adamant that I should not worry-my-pretty-little-head-about-it.

Which I naturally assured him, I would not.

“You know … I’ve had a think and feel as if I overreacted before. I should have told you how fantastic I think it is that you are taking over the cat poop duties.”

Untended Consequences

 I felt the dryness of the tendrilling vine as I grasped the offending weed and gave it a hard tug. It was only afterward - its withered remains sprawled out in a wheelbarrow – that I recognized the sting of a thousand tiny thorns the “volunteer” had used to try and defend itself from my attempts to tear it, stem and root, from its hiding place beneath my admittedly inglorious hydrangea.

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I assume the blame.

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Last year, the blooms were so large and plentiful they obscured their own leafy greens. I didn’t take credit for them, though, since the entire neighborhood was brimming with stunning floral poms.

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My gardening skills, I will tell you, are, almost in their entirety, knowing the difference between the things I’ve planted and the things that came in on the wind. What I think sets me apart from other black thumbs is how I might decide long after the season ebbs which of the weedy plants I will try to nurture next year.

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It’s not pretty, but the planter box is littered with evening primrose, juniper, and any number of seedlings I didn’t plant.

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“This is just one of a thousand reasons gardening is just NOT my thing,” I tell myself as I tend to the burning in my hand more closely.

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The “burrs” looked innocuous enough. Flat, brown little flakes - like loose tobacco - sticking to the meat of my palm. I tried to brush them off, but only managed to transfer them and their burning sensation to my other hand.

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This could be the ghost of a thistle I planted several years ago for its purulent purple flowers. I had the cheeky thoughts back when I’d reluctantly become a gardener that I would only plant risquély named or appearing flora.

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I imagined nonchalantly telling anyone who asked after the identity of the pretty pink flowers dipping their clustered blooms over a shrub of leafy green at the edge of the driveway, “Oh, that’s Hot Lips Turtlehead.”

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No one ever asked.

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I can’t help but think that was the direct result of my directionless care. For instance, I have no idea what pH number my plants would prefer any more than I know how to make the soil measure up. I also never planned for height or color or lighting needs. Which means each season brings a new surprise.

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Some are remarkable, but most of the surprises are unbecoming to a garden.

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I know it doesn’t take as much effort as I think it will. A few weed plucks here, a few pruning clips there, will give the garden enough shape to look landscaped.

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For all the years my children needed tending at the bus stop, the garden looked unlike nature had always intended.

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Those days are long gone. And while I miss them, I have found ways to move on.

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As I clear away the prior year’s leaf litter —- again — I toy with the idea of scrubbing it all. Scorching the earth…. mowing it all down … maybe even paving it over so the fruits of past labor can’t revisit.

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But I won’t.

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I’ll just plan my time better and always wear gloves.