We wear Our Friends On Our Feet

The Story of our shoes

Clip-clop clip-clop. Like a horses hooves striking against cement. Bright red with a western floral design growing up the side from the heel to the top just under the loop to pull them up onto the foot. The heel was high enough that I could lean back and try to walk only on my heels. They were the cowboy boots any young girl dreamed of owning.
I'm seven years old. I love watching documentaries about Spanish flamenco dancers. Their flouncy dresses floating around the dancers as they spun and moved like flowers whirling around in the wind. Cowgirl boots that embodied the spirt of every gun slinging, cow-driving, adventuring man and woman on the frontier. I pulled the cowgirl boots up onto my foot. A satisfying suction sound as my sock-optional foot met the soul of the boot. Lifting my feet out in front of me and doing a little Dorthy tap of the toe, all at once, I became the gunfighter poised for action as they walk down the street of a new frontier town for the first time in western movies. The camera panning up the notorious and mysterious gunfighter from the boots all the way up, up, up to the top of the hat. The confidence exuding from the gunfighter, the towns people enraptured as they feebly hide behind chairs, corners of building, and saloon doors. My imagination became my fairy godmother and actor, the boots my muse.I stood in my doorway, the camera of my mind panning up from the bright red, my boots captured the attention. The sound as they clicked on the floor spoke loudly for me as I entered the kitchen oasis, poised and ready to take on the villain that lay in wait. Or the clip clop of the boots as I saunter down the side-walk from the front porch. On an adventure worthy of cinematic presentation: to new lands, to defeat foreign and unknown foes. }When a cowboy dies, he wants his boots on his feet. The boots aren't going with him anywhere. Where he is about to go he is going alone. There comfort in knowing that the one thing in life that has walked through every battle, gun fight, romantic intrigue, and daring adventure is with you at the very end. These boots have held the dust from deserts. The occasional tarantula found warmth and comfort on cold nights. The mud and sweat stiffened socks from soaking-wet horse rides and tromps through muddy town roads helped to season and stretch the leather. They have had the cow dung and mud cleaned off of them and shined a few times for an occasional town-wide ho-down. They have stared up at the many, notorious gunfighters that have challenged and received death from the revolver just above them at the left hip.
They were there on the feet of the cowboy as the bullet hit the left lung and the offenders huredly jumped on their horses and rode out of town. As the dust settled all the towns people gather around and one beautiful woman accompanied by a learned and intelligent man ran to the aid of the gunfighter. There was no help. Only reassurance that the boots that the gunfighter had specially made for him on the southern border of California by an ancient and wise looking man were on his feet. They were. The gunfighter left the world. All this has happened in a world just above the boots of the cowboy.
I lay on my bed looking at the red cowboy boots. I loved them and the adventures they went with me on. I carefully wrench one boot off. Then I wrench the other foot off. Careful not to cause any creases or indents in the beautiful sewn patterns on the sides of the boots.



I am eleven. I stood at the top step of my childhood home. I look down at the leather ankle boots. The feet inside them, the boots are facing perfectly straight forward toward the front porch that the stairs lead down to. I stare at the boot. They feel foreign. For eleven years these feet pointed toward each other, like the rounded noses of two horses faces kissing one another. My whole body ached. My feet no longer kissed each other.
"Bekah, are you coming inside?" It was dinner time.
{My feet navigated the stairs without tripping me and making me stumble. My aunt had taken me and my mom to a rolpher who was able to watch me walk. Then adjust my bones like a chiropractor. Over the course of a month and several visits. The rolpher would watch me walk. Then take me to a clinically stiff bed and have me lay down in different positions and methodically move my bones into place sometime repeatedly till my bones stayed where they were suppose to. I was no longer "pigeon-toed". At eleven years old, it felt amazing to be able to run away from a teasing and attacking older sister and to finally evade her advances. Since the horses stopped kissing I could run, skip, hike, even bicycling was easier. Now the horses used their energy to run wild and free at any whim. They did just that. I threw out the flat souled leather booties. They were now uncomfortable and didn't serve the purpose of flying free at a moments notice. I think about this as I put on my running outfit. My running clothes feel like a precious ceremony. I am going to embark in an activity that every physical therapists, doctors and chiropractors said I would never be able to do: Running. Today is Roy Rogers Rd, a rolling border road to Sherwood, Oregon. In high school, during track training, the team would run down Main Street, go straight onto Lad Hill Rd, then a sharp hidden right onto Roy Rogers Road. Here, everyone was instantly transported into the country roads of a John Denver ballad.
}This road felt like it ran on forever. Rolling up and down off into the sunset with endless hills. I did track because my sister did. At this point in my life I was able to move at a speed other than walking for six years. My parents were so proud of my sister. I wanted to feel that. I wanted to feel the accomplishment that, apparently, track rained down onto all of its participants. My sister was so strong. In my mind, I equated that to running in track. }I dreaded this training road. One season of track was torture. Roy Rogers Rd. was torture. I had only been able to run for six years of my life at this point. I was over whelmed and unable to keep up with the other girls on the team. I didn't understand the coaches when they said, "Just push through the pain." "You've got this!" All I could feel was the pain in my legs and the ripping of my lungs as a laboriously trudged up the next hill. I felt like the rhinocerous in Jumanji. All the other girls looked like prancing gazelles.
It now houses a couple of small housing developments, nestled between the remaining farms and orchards.
Mountains climbing along the left side of the road. Farms with cows, goats, llamas, ducks, and sheep sprawling lazily at the base of the mountains. In between, Orchards waving their limbs in a dance with the breeze channeled through this valley. I let out a moo or quack at the animals near their fences. They just watch me as they chew on their food, watching, as I push my body up and down the rolling hills of the road.
The friends with me today have a squishy purple soles, seafoam blue-green webbed tops and shoe laces cradling my feet and absorbing the impact of each stride as I run. Are these shoes green or blue? They are softly colored, like this spring day with soft spring sunlight. I sit on the front porch of my childhood home and jam my compression-sock feet into the running shoes. Left foot. Right Foot. I get up. My legs are cold but rested. I pull up my compression sleeves. Deep breathe. My lungs inflate and then let go. I have decided that the shoes are blue in the shade and more green in direct light, like memories faded by time but still retaining both types of feelings about a moment.
I start up Pine Street, in the middle of the very steep hill. I'm just walking. I'm warming up my sitting-at- a- desk cold legs. My calves and ankles are stiff. Walking up this hill makes me feel as though I have leather for muscles instead of supple and springy muscles. They are so cold. I'm headed to Sunset Park. Arguably the best park in Sherwood. Sunset Park is situated on the highest hilltop in Sherwood, the valley sweeping off to the next mountain ridge on the sky line. It used to be a filbert orchard, over-grown and abandoned when I was a young girl. The over grown grasses and scraggly branches inciting a foreboding feeling, especially on foggy days. No fog gathers on this hilltop anymore.
Passing a gentleman in an orange long sleeve shirt , white baseball cap and white short, with tall white socks climbing up his legs from white tennis shoes, Nike splashed on every piece of clothing. We are on the same side-walk and we turn to look at each other as I pass him. He nods and smiles and I do the same. Then continue on alone. L
I enter the park. The asphault path feeling as tempory as a red carpet rolled out at the celebrity events on TV. I walk and follow the path rolled out between the old water tower and the new above ground water tower, It has two tennis courts on top. There are players laughing and hitting the ball back and forth as I pass by. Thump. Thump. Thump. The raquets hitting the ball and a return back to the player closest to the trail I'm on.
The drinking fountain. The path ends at the drinking fountain at the entraince of the baseball diamond. There are no observers in the bleachers and no games right now. Everything stands quiet in an awaiting tension, like every blade of grass is strining fto have the excitement of cheering and players running around the baseballs. The water is the sweetest at this park's drinking fountain and always cold. I sip and top off my hand held water bottle, my other best companion on my running adventures. My shoes guard my feet from the earth. The water bottle gaurds my body from thirst and dehydration. I walk toward the main graveled trail that runs east-west, by the baseball diamond, the soccer field, the bathrooms, and the play areas for children. I give my legs a few shakes, do a few high on the toes lifts for my calves, a few high knee steps. They are awake. They are warm. The legs are ready to go.
I'm so ready for this run. I planned for 6 miles today. Not too long. I have my compression sock on, my compression sleeves on. I wear a running hat that has an extra opening at the back for my long brown hair to be pulled through and support my thick pony tail while run. I have my green running shorts on, they are tight and breathable, emphasis on the breathable, I always wear a loose tank top, today it the one that makes me look like a teenage basketball player with the over-sized arm pit holes. I wear my over-sized over the ear earphones that if my fiercely athletic out fit didn't ward-off human interference the earphones would be a blazing sign that no interruption is needed from anyone at this point. I'm ready to take off.
I start running. My running, in my head, looks like a well trained athlete with a running gait that pendulums with the earth in a ceaseless tempo, cutting through the air and over the ground effortlessly. Reality is known to my conscious mind, the video on my phone shows a curvy middle-aged woman, with a gait that favors the right side ever so slightly. I'm aware. However, this is running time. My time to put on my imaginary persona of high achieving athlete, that has sbeen training for this moment for most of her life. This puts a little extra in my energy bank in order to push me up every hill that I meet. Sherwood has many hills. There are fewer flat roads than there are hil- tilted roads.
Crunch. Scrunch. Crunch. The ground talks back to the tread of my shoes as I try to achieve the tempo that I desire for the 6 mile adventure. The brand name splashed on the side of them, in big firm print, yelling at the world as I run by. I pass a woman, probably in her sixties. Gray curls peeking out from underneathe her cap. Her face is curvy and looks made to smile. She gives my a smile and says Goodmorning. I breathe good morning and respond with a smile. Smiles, the sunlight of the face. Hers is especially bright and joyful. Does it take practice to smile like this? The smile from a well of joy deep inside her soul that she is able to unveil and reveal to the world. This smile sticks with me for a few minutes.
Sunset. The street name is Sunset. Pine and Sunset are the main hill traversing road in Sherwood. Time to run Downhill. Lean into the hill. You're going to want to lean back to slow yourself but that will put extra strain on your knees. Tillt your body forward with the hill. Let gravity do the work and you legs align with your hips." "What? That can't work!" Today I try it. Leaning in to the hill rather than against. Leaning in to the thing that I want to resist the most. My body moves down the hill smoother than ever before. My knees don't hurt. I make sure to keep my hips from anteriorly tilting.
I'm flying down the hill, controlled, not in pain. The tallest hill in Sherwood doesn't hurt my knees. I have run this hill dozens of times. On my own, in freshman track, with my sister. My knees have always hurt.
"some people just aren't genetically able to run." Or "I have injured my body too much in my lifetime" or "some people just don't have the optimal body structure to run" I was born with a skeleton that didn't line up. I was pigeon toed till I was 11 years old and a 6th grader in middle school. It wasn't till my Aunt helped my parents pay for me to see a chiropractor rolfer who was able to realign my bones with a few , painful appointments of her moving my bones back into alignment where they belong. These reasons I had accepted for years. I was always going to be in pain running and that running isn't the healthiest activity for me to do.
I loved running. I complained running in track. I think because it wasn't what I really wanted to do at that time in life. I remember the first time running one complete lap around the track in PE in middle school. I was embarrassed. Here I was surrounded by my peers that ran around the track without even giving the activity another thought. They just accepted the challenge as easily as breathing or talking. I completed by first lap and my heart leaped with joy. My legs ached slightly from the exertion. The thrill of actually making it around the track keeping up with the other kids was the first time I experienced this in my entire life.
I cross main street, staying on Sunset. Sunset is going to roll over the lazy hills of Sherwood and I'm just going to keep this rhythm as I ploddingly run over sunset.
I pass Archer Glenn. I remember the "Fun Run" fundraisers that they did every year. I hated the "Fun Run". It was torture. People would pledge how many laps that I would run and if I met the lap number I would get the money they pledged. I can't remember exactly but I don't think I met the lap number, ever. I was so unable to do this "Fun Run" that my teacher one year came out to help me finish my second lap while everyone else was on their tenth lap. It hurt. My whole body screamed. I would trip over my feet and always felt so stupid. My teacher, Mrs. Levine jogged beside me. The last year that the "Fun Run" took place. I skipped it. I opted to stay in the classroom rather than have to be hurded around the track with the other kids. The girls with their ribboned hair and the little boys in their hyper athletic outfits.
I take a deep breathe. So many years, I didn't even think about this at all. I give a little extra push up the next hill. I pass a man walking his adorable, curly furred labrodoodle. We say "morning" and I continue up the hill. I hug myself- this one is for you Bekah. You're running up every one of these hills today because you can now.
Lazy legs. That's what I have had all my life. I have to make a concerted effort to flex my quads and engage with the ground. It's easier and easier but the engagement has taken effort. Otherwise my foot fall is heavier than my knees and hips are comfortable with. I breath in and out. Filling my lungs at the top of the hill. My mind fills with the thought of stopping. Of just stopping the pace to rest. I know my body though. I don't need to stop. My body has been trained every week day morning at 5 am and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Running 5 miles home from work in Tualatin. There is no way my muscles need a break. I slow and breathe a little heavier. I'm having a panic attack. Cars and people give me panic attacks. Still today.
I can run for miles in the country without fighting my mind, wanting to stop for a break. My mind trying to trick my body into believing that it needs a rest. It doesn't. It is capable and wonderfully built this body. My mind when distracted by turkeys, horses, orchards with goats free ranging accompanied by their guardian dogs, cows, chickens, llamas along the country roads of Newberg taught me that my body and mind can run for as long as they want to without a break. I have always had this potential. A potential hiding behind beliefs of limitation.
I shrug breath. I take air in through my nose first, my mouth, filling my lungs enough to have to raise my shoulders for room and lower my shoulders to let out the air from my lungs. My air way relaxes and my breathing returns to normal. My mind releases what ever is panicking it. I hate being in Sherwood right now, back at my parents house. This feeling is always something, below the surface, that I fight with.






No one knows where I'm goingNo one knows where I come from. Yet as I run by everyone smiles and waves and says good morning. The sunlight has brought out so many people.
Back to the road. The HOKA's lend comfort while my body accepts the challenge of "The Hill". The 45 degree climb I affectionately call the "Ass challenger". I chant "Come on legs. You can do it." And "Don't stop now you've got it in you." One stride at a time. My breath gets more labored. Halfway to the top. Sweat is pouring down my face. One more quarter to go. My legs start to cramp. My glutes are tight. My legs give One two three more quivering strides... and I'm there. I slap the pole of the stop sign at the very top of the hill as if slapping the hand of a friend. Job well done.
The hoka's and I turn around and look at the valley. Orchards, vineyards and open fields for range animals quilt the valley. Behind me there is land rising still, a vineyard. I take my now rested legs down the road along the crest of this hill and descend into a gulch. This is where I will rest, led beside still waters of a gentle lazy crawdad filled stream.












Most influential pairs of shoes that I've owned in my life:
Cowgirl boots, asics, white kitten heels with a flower, dansko clogs,