The boots had always been there, inside the back door at the bottom of the stairs leading to my friend’s kitchen. We all went visiting through her back door; the front door was reserved for formal visitors. No one remembered when the front door was last used. And so, after her smiling face, the boots were the next things I saw when she opened her door.
Silent sentinels, worn and tired, they made no apology for their appearance. The alchemy of time had changed the composition of the soles, and they were brittle and cracked. In contrast, the high-top leather uppers had grown into soft molds of my friend’s feet and ankles. The gouges, nicks, and scrapes had not rendered them less serviceable through the years. In fact, it had been a rare day that they were not called into service. They were a tribute to the lessons taught early in life, that you took proper care of what made the farm run well—right down to your boots. And, if you took good care of things that were made well, they would last a lifetime—and they had
The boots were about the same age as the farm itself—60 years, give or take a year. At that, they were still a couple of decades younger than my friend, who came from Missouri to Idaho as a young bride. She had stepped into Idaho farm life wearing these very same boots—only then they were stiff, shiny and smelling leather-new.
She won’t be taking them with her to the retirement center.
Her two sons and their families took over the dairy herd and most of the farm chores when her husband died several years ago. Even so, until recently she had still worked 12 hour days to keep up the huge vegetable and flower gardens, the house, and the other miscellaneous chores required to help keep the farm running smoothly. It was the way she wanted it. That was that.
But in the last several weeks, chores had taken on a different theme.
“What price should I put on Grandma’s serving platter? There are only a few chips in it; it’s still perfectly useable.”
“Who in the family do you think would take good care of these old quilts? A lot of stitches there….”
“Do you think that any of the grandkids would want these picture albums? No one but me’d know who most of those people were…”
“What should I take with me? There’s not much space in those rooms…”
I can offer moral support and my legs, back, and arms for carrying boxes up and down stairs, but I can’t answer the questions—nor am I intended to. The family has already taken what they want; what is left will be sold or taken to the dump.
It was on one of my last visits to the farm, as we stood by the back door, that her eyes fell on the boots. They were still there, waiting at the bottom of the steps.
“I guess no one’s going to want these old things.”
She reached down, picked them up, and held them to her chest like a schoolgirl holding her books. I could see the young woman she once was.
“It wasn’t all hard work. I used to put on these boots and walk for miles out there in the desert. There’s nothing like the smell of fresh sagebrush in the spring. There were lots of animals, too, if you knew what to look for. Their tracks were everywhere.” She paused, then shrugged and sighed before she continued.
“A lifetime of rocks I’ve collected are still out in the barn. When we first moved out here, I could still find lots of arrowheads and old bottles and jars—stuff that the wagon trains, trappers, and prospectors left behind. I would daydream and wonder about all of them—the Indians, settlers, miners, even the animals. Somehow my desert ‘finds’ were personal links to them. I could almost see them, talk to them.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Anyone else would think I was a foolish old woman,” she said to me. Then, her eyes dropped to my feet. “They look like they’d fit you! There’s still some wear in them.” Even as she was apologizing for their condition, we both knew that she was offering me more than a pair of old boots.
My over-priced, hi-tech, trendy hiking boots perch haughtily on my closet shelf awaiting the occasional backpacking trip, or day hike. My friend’s boots have made themselves comfortably at home—just outside my kitchen, by the back door, faithfully waiting for the daily lawn and garden chores.
If—as skeptics would have us believe—our spirits, hopes, dreams, and loves do not imprint all that we touch in our daily lives, then why, while I’m lacing up those old boots, do I have a brief glimpse of a young woman dancing in the desert, surrounded by the spirits of those who have shared this desert with us?
