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.