Boots are made for walking

I just sat down next to the first inside fire of the fall season. I sit and unlace my hiking boots. The good old trusted boots that seem to signal the change of seasons. These are the boots I wear most of the winter in the city. They can handle the city snow if I am just running in and out of places- not the deep cold and snow boots. They are the boots that take me on the long spring walks through the north shore woods – over frosted mud puddles. They are the boots that helped me up the long climb in northern Minnesota in June with my daughter – swampy, rocky and beautiful.

These are the boots that betrayed me this fall when the laces tangled and I went flying face first into the street – leaving me with a busted lip and broken bones in my wrist. These are the boots that I almost pitched in the garbage but didn’t. I stuffed them in the back of the front closet and let them just sit there. How could they have let me down so much?

Today as the skies turned dark, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped I went looking for my friends. They sat quietly in the dark corner knowing that this time would come. I would need them again and so I do.

I carefully laced them so they would not get tangled. I enjoyed the warmth of my friends around my cold toes, the snug fit that made my steps feel stolid as I pushed through the wind on my walk today. Hiking boots – friends through thick and thin times.