May 31 is a day that makes me smile. Not because it was the last day I paid any attention to the blog-world (and any of you out there who might be reading what I have to say), but because it's the day before everything in my life changed. My world in April and May of this year, was very literary. I read so many books...was writing a couple times a week (which is really often, for me)...having trouble making time to be dragged out of my little tower-room for real-life interaction.
And then June 1 happened.
Not very many people want to walk through life barefoot. It's easy, if you're not used to being barefoot, to pick up thorns or stumble into something dirty that you're likely to carry with you for a while. It's not a risk most people are willing to take. Women prance through life in heels so tall they aren't even touching the ground. Men stomp through in heavy boots, oblivious of what they might be crushing or run through in athletic shoes specially designed to keep them from feeling the ground when they do touch it. Other people shuffle through in ragged Wal-Mart shoes, doing the best they can to just stay upright.
When you're barefoot, you notice shoes. And you notice when someone is wearing them awkwardly. Because sometimes, people wear shoes just because they've never been told they could take them off.
June 1 of this year, I had a conversation with someone from another life. Someone I knew and loved once long, long ago. I hadn't learned to take my shoes off, back then, and I didn't know enough to recognize that he was wearing his just to stay upright. All I knew, then, was that if we tried to walk very far together, we'd trip over each other and both end up with bloodied knees. He was sure if I held his hand we wouldn't fall, but I knew better and said so often enough that he eventually turned and walked away.
Life is funny, so they say. True love will not be denied and all that. I'm not so convinced that's true and I've always scoffed at the
Ever After idea that we are all meant to find
the one for us. Yet, here I am, living a story as beautiful as any a fantasy author could have devised. Because, after we'd walked apart for long enough...after I'd learned the beauty of living barefoot in intimate connection with the living, breathing world...after he'd changed his shoes a couple times and still not found a pair that felt right...we walked back into each other's lives.
It's been a beautiful summer. A summer full of flowing rivers and sunlight through oak leaves and long talks under the stars. Tents and moss and friends and family, tea at sunrise atop a rock to the roar of the highway while all the hotel guests watch us from behind the glass of their CNN-filled dining room and wonder why we're crazy. Kisses in the rain, tears at the remembrance of harder times, countless hours in the car learning each other through conversations that we hope will never stop.
And, once he knew he could, my Love took his shoes off.
He still puts them back on, some days. When he needs a little extra security or he's not quite sure where we're going to be walking next. But most days we walk barefoot, in and out of the lives of those we love, hands clasped, fingers entwined.
Sometimes, when you walk barefoot and the world thinks you're crazy and you're tired of looking for someone to walk barefoot with you, you figure it must be easier and better to do it alone.
But sometimes your Creator reminds you that you don't know quite as much as you think you do and steps into your life to teach you something beautifully new. Today, for me, that means walking barefoot with someone: pointing out the bits of ground to avoid stepping on, apologizing when I tread on his toes, reminding him that I don't mind when he steps on mine and smiling bigger than I ever have before when he pulls me into his arms and shows me how to dance.
My Love and I will be married next summer. Barefoot.
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