Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Traveling Boots




I own a pair of dirty worn out boots I've had since I was 19. I picked them off the shelf of a store in my hometown when they were new, clean, and still held the aroma of fresh leather. Now, the toes have been scuffed to a sturdy velvet, and the soles no longer provide much traction. The tops are frayed and stained from sweat. They were once the color of a copper penny and held a shine, but now they have taken on the all the luster of an old piece of farm equipment resting in a field. I would be justified to get rid of them, but I can't seem to let them go. They have been all over with me. On a train through Europe I started listed how far these boots have been. Like stickers on an old suitcase, I added names in ink to the side of the boots. They fit right in some places I've worn them and stuck out in others, if the drawl didn't already give it away. They've been soaked by the snow in the Austrian Alps, and caked in mud from a dirt road in Bolivia. They held up on a cotton farm in Lubbock, and once two-stepped across dance hall floors in the Texas Hill Country. They were underneath my feet when I saw a Monet painting for the first time. That same year, I met my first niece wearing them. Theres a splatter of acrylic paint I dripped on them during a summer in Massachusetts, and a single droplet of blood I added after I shoot my first deer with my Granddad. I was wearing them that night I thought my life was going to change forever. I was wearing them when I bought the ring I presented to the woman who would become my wife. 
They have have taken a lot of steps since they first left Early, Texas seven years ago. All those steps led me here...and I imagine they will keep going. It is where these boots have been that has made them.




'We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.'