Dear Angela. Just between you and me, you’ve saved the day. People may read this piece as a quirky picture of British eccentricity concerning old shoes. Of course they may. And if I haven’t written it properly, then maybe that is all everyone will see. But since you have unpicked the threads of loss and bereavement woven through, then perhaps I haven’t made a complete cods of it :-) Thank you.
When I reached into my mailbox this morning, my hand touched what felt like an old leather envelope. Curious, I carefully extracted it from all the paper competing for space. Addressed to me? Titled, ‘Old Boots’? Did my husband put you up to this? If your old boot collection is anything like mine, they have accompanied me on many a journey, tossing them by the wayside is indeed a travesty. I wear mine every day. I am not what you would call a high-heeled kind of girl. I have four pairs, all of the same brand. Black, heavy rubber-soled that are great for gripping rock, but eventually granite and pavement, life, wear them down to a crooked heel and worn-out tread. The ‘elders’ are dispersed between summer camp and home. Four have been relegated to garden work, I’ve promised to use them, and I do. I think your old boots are in my basement. They uncannily resemble my husband’s, either that or your boots had their own solo adventure. They crossed an ocean and ended up in VT. I will be more than happy to find them a nice tree stump in the woods with a lovely view. Of course I will have to sneak them out the back door in a brown paper bag; wouldn’t want to be caught with a case of mistaken identity—‘but honey, I thought for sure they looked like David Knowles’ boots’, —‘Who the heck is David Knowles?’ Perhaps that shelf in the shed should be called The Boot Library, treasured like old books with a worn binding. I love your sentiments and metaphors. You are a kindred spirit of all things boots: the passage of time, the well trodden path laid out in memories, and the footfalls not yet written in the earth.
Hi Lor. We share some bootlace virtual network that seems to pay little heed to latitude and longitude. Far distant paths cross and a step can span a continent. Your boot library is the eighth wonder of the world :-)
In an old 1800s sea captain’s house on the coast of Maine, uncovered under the bricks of the original fireplace during renovations, were two pair of boots, one a man’s and one a child’s…. After the work was completed we put them back, adding a pair or two of our own.
Love this, David. A shelf where old boots go to slowly shuffle off their mortal coil. We’ve got a cupboard like that in our bootroom, filled with boots that aren’t quite done with but which haven’t been worn for an age. A slow retirement!
I think we could probably do better than that:-) once it’s up and running, should ever that happen, you could use it as a writing retreat! Fresh baguettes on tap too 😂
Writing retreat, you say?? Fuelled by home baking, he wonders? Open to scribblers like me not just erudite wordsmiths like David? Now that is my sort of retreat! I’d even get new boots for the trip!
My old boots are sitting in the hallway. I have new ones hidden under a chair, in wiating. The soles of the old ones finally went on a snowy walk in December -- rare Breton snow. Sudden and wet. We've walked together for 15 years -- the physical link to walks in Ireland and Cornwall, Avebury, my first 5 years here in the forest and the best decade of walks in North Wales, to Cwmorthin above a beloved home. I walk past them in the hallway and can't bring myself to take them to the bins, but a shelf in the sous sol -- I can do that :)
Dear Jan. I just realised that we met long ago and you were very kind then as you are now :-) Your boots must speak many of the old languages of these lands by now and will no doubt whisper the words to the new boots, as is their way.
I had such a phenomenal affection for the first pair of leather boots I ever owned, that walked me off to college and into other landscapes and then around the world together and then through years of field work on my thesis ... that when they literally started falling off my feet I couldn't fathom throwing them. There was an old shepard's hut in the high country where I did a lot of field work, and sometimes I slept... I too tucked them into a back corner on a bottom shelf and wished them well. Over thirty years later I think of them there still - can picture them clearly and feel their soft worn sides. Glad to find company in such devotions.
Hi, Jenny. Thanks for reading. I often haunt the broken stone huts and bothies on the hills above and around our house. I just linger inside them for no reason and sometimes smell a breakfast fire from centuries ago, find a scrap of leather or a fragment of some broken tool. I always leave them just how I find them. The sleepy persistence of these things frightens me a little. I wonder how I can ever live up to the challenge. The image of your boots hidden in the high country gives me a sort of wonderful, giddy temporal vertigo. Thanks.
So beautiful. I remember a pair of my daughter’s shoes— adorable leather flats that she wore through to the heels that had formed to become the exact shape of her little six year old feet— that I couldn’t bear to throw out. They were like magical sacred faery slippers, to me. I think I will have to write a poem for them , or something, at some point. I love when the beautiful things in our lives demand us to pay homage to them… when we listen. Thank you.
Dear Elka. The concentration of beauty and meaning in physical objects, refined and purified over and over, can rarely be higher than in your magical, sacred slippers. A miraculous alchemy, I guess :-)
Newbie here :) A beautiful first piece of yours, I'm looking forward to more.
The comment section here alone is just gold! I'm so relieved to see there are so many other boot-loving-mourning-putting them in holy places to retire-people. You've seemed to have given us a thread to tie all our laces together, across the world. How cool is that!
Oh my gosh! I took me second to remember how I used that word. And you're right, we have crossed paths before. Happily. I remember your piece about the juniper tree, re-read it the other day. I so love that one! :)
Love this piece - and I totally get it. I always feel like a traitor giving up a good old pair of boots....and I tell myself the same story - that maybe some day they will come back into service for a special job.
This treatise on old boots could also be about those sock pals that accompany my feet into the boots. Even when these beloved socks are beginning to fray and be less useful, I find myself putting them on again, sometimes even surreptitiously with the new pair of boots. It’s hard to part with old friends.
Good Morning to you and Boots! I love your story of old boots. I think they will take on another life of their own if they are sitting quietly on a bottom shelf in the shed. I believe a little creature will make their cozy home in them and say "thank you" for the sweet house. I once had to pass on a pair of sweet lace shoes that I roamed the mountains in. Lace shoes. I buried them under a plum tree with herbs and dried flowers. Another type of giving back.
A refined and delicate type of giving back, Lisa. I saw a weasel cross the road by the house this very morning. What a weasel-castle an old boot would make :-) We live in hope.
I behave in much the same way Linda. Purchase a new sturdy pair for walks and longer explores, then it’s a year later before i ever actually put them on. Despite the patched holes in the older ones, the smooth sole, I look at the new boots on the shelf, and then choose the old ones that are so comfortable. It’s usually a year or more after finally succumbing to choosing the new, that I part with the old ones.
ah David, the antidote to consumerism. and isn't our footwear how we connect with the Land and one way the Land shares stories coming up through the soles (souls?) of our bodies. loved the tenderness of this reflection. your and your boots and all the miles you meander together...what a gift they offer us.
The sigh as the old boots settle into their retirement says it all. ‘We’ve had a great life of adventures with the wearer. Time passes, we all age and need the rest that comes slowly we hope. Then as we must we make an ending. Thank you David for speaking of this gentle going into the night.
This is the most gentle and effective exploration of mortality and mourning I've yet encountered. Very helpful and appreciated. Thank you, David.
Dear Angela. Just between you and me, you’ve saved the day. People may read this piece as a quirky picture of British eccentricity concerning old shoes. Of course they may. And if I haven’t written it properly, then maybe that is all everyone will see. But since you have unpicked the threads of loss and bereavement woven through, then perhaps I haven’t made a complete cods of it :-) Thank you.
When I reached into my mailbox this morning, my hand touched what felt like an old leather envelope. Curious, I carefully extracted it from all the paper competing for space. Addressed to me? Titled, ‘Old Boots’? Did my husband put you up to this? If your old boot collection is anything like mine, they have accompanied me on many a journey, tossing them by the wayside is indeed a travesty. I wear mine every day. I am not what you would call a high-heeled kind of girl. I have four pairs, all of the same brand. Black, heavy rubber-soled that are great for gripping rock, but eventually granite and pavement, life, wear them down to a crooked heel and worn-out tread. The ‘elders’ are dispersed between summer camp and home. Four have been relegated to garden work, I’ve promised to use them, and I do. I think your old boots are in my basement. They uncannily resemble my husband’s, either that or your boots had their own solo adventure. They crossed an ocean and ended up in VT. I will be more than happy to find them a nice tree stump in the woods with a lovely view. Of course I will have to sneak them out the back door in a brown paper bag; wouldn’t want to be caught with a case of mistaken identity—‘but honey, I thought for sure they looked like David Knowles’ boots’, —‘Who the heck is David Knowles?’ Perhaps that shelf in the shed should be called The Boot Library, treasured like old books with a worn binding. I love your sentiments and metaphors. You are a kindred spirit of all things boots: the passage of time, the well trodden path laid out in memories, and the footfalls not yet written in the earth.
( check your DM)
Hi Lor. We share some bootlace virtual network that seems to pay little heed to latitude and longitude. Far distant paths cross and a step can span a continent. Your boot library is the eighth wonder of the world :-)
In an old 1800s sea captain’s house on the coast of Maine, uncovered under the bricks of the original fireplace during renovations, were two pair of boots, one a man’s and one a child’s…. After the work was completed we put them back, adding a pair or two of our own.
Oh, such a beauty of an image, Susan. Thank you for letting me see it. I will dream and dream of a sea captain and a child :-)
A beautiful reflection on what we love and how we say goodbye.
Love this, David. A shelf where old boots go to slowly shuffle off their mortal coil. We’ve got a cupboard like that in our bootroom, filled with boots that aren’t quite done with but which haven’t been worn for an age. A slow retirement!
Great minds, eh? I love your barn. If ever you find an old tramp asleep in the corner right early in the morning - don’t kick me too hard ;-)
I think we could probably do better than that:-) once it’s up and running, should ever that happen, you could use it as a writing retreat! Fresh baguettes on tap too 😂
Writing retreat, you say?? Fuelled by home baking, he wonders? Open to scribblers like me not just erudite wordsmiths like David? Now that is my sort of retreat! I’d even get new boots for the trip!
Wouldn’t that be fabulous! And definitely fuelled by home baking and croft produce! 🥰
Book me in!!
My old boots are sitting in the hallway. I have new ones hidden under a chair, in wiating. The soles of the old ones finally went on a snowy walk in December -- rare Breton snow. Sudden and wet. We've walked together for 15 years -- the physical link to walks in Ireland and Cornwall, Avebury, my first 5 years here in the forest and the best decade of walks in North Wales, to Cwmorthin above a beloved home. I walk past them in the hallway and can't bring myself to take them to the bins, but a shelf in the sous sol -- I can do that :)
Dear Jan. I just realised that we met long ago and you were very kind then as you are now :-) Your boots must speak many of the old languages of these lands by now and will no doubt whisper the words to the new boots, as is their way.
that's a beautiful thought :)
I had such a phenomenal affection for the first pair of leather boots I ever owned, that walked me off to college and into other landscapes and then around the world together and then through years of field work on my thesis ... that when they literally started falling off my feet I couldn't fathom throwing them. There was an old shepard's hut in the high country where I did a lot of field work, and sometimes I slept... I too tucked them into a back corner on a bottom shelf and wished them well. Over thirty years later I think of them there still - can picture them clearly and feel their soft worn sides. Glad to find company in such devotions.
Hi, Jenny. Thanks for reading. I often haunt the broken stone huts and bothies on the hills above and around our house. I just linger inside them for no reason and sometimes smell a breakfast fire from centuries ago, find a scrap of leather or a fragment of some broken tool. I always leave them just how I find them. The sleepy persistence of these things frightens me a little. I wonder how I can ever live up to the challenge. The image of your boots hidden in the high country gives me a sort of wonderful, giddy temporal vertigo. Thanks.
So beautiful. I remember a pair of my daughter’s shoes— adorable leather flats that she wore through to the heels that had formed to become the exact shape of her little six year old feet— that I couldn’t bear to throw out. They were like magical sacred faery slippers, to me. I think I will have to write a poem for them , or something, at some point. I love when the beautiful things in our lives demand us to pay homage to them… when we listen. Thank you.
Dear Elka. The concentration of beauty and meaning in physical objects, refined and purified over and over, can rarely be higher than in your magical, sacred slippers. A miraculous alchemy, I guess :-)
:) And now my daughter's sacred slippers have even more meaning, (to me)-- thanks to the gift of your words.
Newbie here :) A beautiful first piece of yours, I'm looking forward to more.
The comment section here alone is just gold! I'm so relieved to see there are so many other boot-loving-mourning-putting them in holy places to retire-people. You've seemed to have given us a thread to tie all our laces together, across the world. How cool is that!
Hi Vic. Thanks for taking the time. You are not so ‘newbie’ already :-) I recall you gave me ‘brumation’ as a word last autumn. Many thanks
Oh my gosh! I took me second to remember how I used that word. And you're right, we have crossed paths before. Happily. I remember your piece about the juniper tree, re-read it the other day. I so love that one! :)
Love this piece - and I totally get it. I always feel like a traitor giving up a good old pair of boots....and I tell myself the same story - that maybe some day they will come back into service for a special job.
Hi Anne. The world seems to be fuller than I expected of people who talk to their boots. Very reassuring :-)
This treatise on old boots could also be about those sock pals that accompany my feet into the boots. Even when these beloved socks are beginning to fray and be less useful, I find myself putting them on again, sometimes even surreptitiously with the new pair of boots. It’s hard to part with old friends.
Hi Marilynn. Your sock-pals are go-betweens, mentoring the new boots in the stories of the old :-)
I love it, David - my socks are mentors! Now I know why I get so attached to them, even when they’re holey (holy?).
Love this on all its levels.
Thank you, Susan, for stepping carefully as you read :-)
Good Morning to you and Boots! I love your story of old boots. I think they will take on another life of their own if they are sitting quietly on a bottom shelf in the shed. I believe a little creature will make their cozy home in them and say "thank you" for the sweet house. I once had to pass on a pair of sweet lace shoes that I roamed the mountains in. Lace shoes. I buried them under a plum tree with herbs and dried flowers. Another type of giving back.
A refined and delicate type of giving back, Lisa. I saw a weasel cross the road by the house this very morning. What a weasel-castle an old boot would make :-) We live in hope.
When I get new boots I can’t bear to get them muddy at first- so keep putting the old pair on for ages. Daft!!
Hi Linda. I guess you are too young, then, to remember the lady’s advice - ‘these boots are made for walking …’ ;-)
Old enough! I was 4. 😊
I behave in much the same way Linda. Purchase a new sturdy pair for walks and longer explores, then it’s a year later before i ever actually put them on. Despite the patched holes in the older ones, the smooth sole, I look at the new boots on the shelf, and then choose the old ones that are so comfortable. It’s usually a year or more after finally succumbing to choosing the new, that I part with the old ones.
Glad I’m not the only one 🤣
Ikr? Good to know there’s kindred spirits
ah David, the antidote to consumerism. and isn't our footwear how we connect with the Land and one way the Land shares stories coming up through the soles (souls?) of our bodies. loved the tenderness of this reflection. your and your boots and all the miles you meander together...what a gift they offer us.
The sigh as the old boots settle into their retirement says it all. ‘We’ve had a great life of adventures with the wearer. Time passes, we all age and need the rest that comes slowly we hope. Then as we must we make an ending. Thank you David for speaking of this gentle going into the night.
Hi Ambermoggie. Thanks for sticking with my ramblings :-) Aye, you have it nailed. We won’t ask for whom the bell tolls. We know fine well.