Sunday, September 21, 2014

Barefoot Child

I hated wearing shoes when I was young, even all the way up into my twenties. Of course, I was required to wear shoes to school. During the summer months, shoes were a necessity unless I stayed in the grass, which was always cool to my sidewalk-seared feet. 

Sometimes, now, I lay back in my bed and think about how it felt, especially how cool the grass was and how the blades tickled when I walked. We had a pretty thick lawn, so my feet would sink down into it and the grass would curve up the sides of my feet and tickle me there, too, at least until the lawn was mowed. The soles of my feet were so calloused and thick by the time I was in my teens I could walk on broken glass and not get cut. Not that it's something to be proud of. But, you know, I grew up in the south, where 40 degrees farenheit was considered heavy coat weather. I rarely ever wore a coat, either.

But now it seems the memories are fading a bit each time I try to remember how it felt. Of course, I was a child. I didn't take the time to pay close attention to things like that. I was too busy exploring and learning and enjoying life. Which was as it should be. But if I had ever had a clue that one day, out of the blue, I would lose the ability to feel anything at all on my legs and feet, maybe I'd have played in the grass more as an adult.

Too late now. But I have an excellent back-up memory. Several, in fact, of playing on the beach. We lived fairly close to the Gulf of Mexico. Our favorite stretch of beach was completely deserted. Our family would go out in the morning on a weekend and I could tell when we were getting close to the shore because the sky would gradually turn a gorgeous shade of blue. There were mounds of sand beside the road that ran along the shore so we couldn't see the water until my dad crossed a break in the sand dunes and we spun our tires through the loose sand onto the firmer sand of the beach. He'd park and my sister and I lept out of the car almost before it stopped moviing. There were no seatbelts to hold us back in those days. I remember running as fast as I could to the shallow waves. Then, just as the edge of a wave barely touched my toes, I'd run just as quickly away from it, giggling with total delight.

While I played this game of chase, my dad wandered up and down the beach, gathering driftwood so we could cook our dinner over a fire later. At least, I assume he did. I was too engaged in my fun to notice. But a pile of driftwood would magically appear, as would the fire later on. When you're a child you don't question that kind of magic.

After I tired of chasing and being chased by the waves, i'd wade in the water, then stand still as the waves washed across my feet. I watched with fascination as, with each wave that washed in and out, my feet would gradually be covered by sand. After they disappeared up to my ankles, I'd get a frisson of panic and quickly pull them out with a "spawp!" sound.

Mom probably yelled herself hoarse, constantly hollering for us to come back. The thing is, distance is deceptive when you walk along the edge of the waves of a large body of water. Before you know it, you're a lot farther away than you think from where you started. So I'm sure Mom kept an eagle eye on her two girls to make sure we didn't stray too far. Of course, I didn't know why she kept yelling. I didn't even wonder. I was a little girl and all my senses were overflowing with the warmth of the sun and how squishy the sand felt between my toes and how blue-green the water was against the whitecaps and how far the water went and what the sandpipers looked like when they ran across the sand, and how special the air smelled, so different from the air at home. And if Mommy called, I cheerfully came because she was there and Daddy was there and that made this wonderful place I was experiencing safe.

As the day turned into late afternoon, the driftwood magically became a fire. Mom had pulled out the cast-iron skillet she'd brought. Fairies peeled and sliced potatoes and onions into the skillet and added some oil, then Mom cooked the veggies over the fire. I'm pretty sure the fairies fed the peelings to seagulls. I'm not sure, because by this time I was completely focused on the food. 

By the time we'd skewered our hot dogs on to straightened-out wire clotheshangers (which were painted black and probably poisoned us somehow) and ate our half-burned hotdogs, followed by charcoaled marshmallows which were cooked on the same coathangers so that they tasted like gooey melted sweetness which surrounded bits of crunchy charcoaled hot dog, the sun had set.

We sat by the fire, and I know I must have been half, if not fully, asleep. I have the vaguest of memories, like disconnected polka dots in my mind, of Mom and Dad cleaning up, but nothing of getting into the car. The next thing I knew, I was in bed, it was the next morning, I was sunburned, and everything in my life was perfect.

So now, I have saved these memories from the vagaries of my aging brain and I can visit them whenever my memory starts to slide away from me. And I can always remember when life was perfect. Thank you for indulging me.

Many wishes for all of you to always be able to revisit these kinds of days.










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