Boots Off to My Sisters

I know this isn't usually a fashion column, but I love wearing my black boots.

When I'm in a sassy, no-nonsense, go-get-'em mood, I wear my black boots.

When I don't feel quite up to a challenge, but I have to show up anyway, I wear my black, knee-high boots.

When I want to make a statement, but don't think I have anything of value to say, I pick out a skirt and some leggings and the boots do the rest.

My knees can't take heels anymore, so they're flat-soled, with a buckle at the top. They zip up the middle.

They're my super-hero costume! I can walk a mile in them without a blister, they're not too tight for my fat calves, and they go with just about everything, although they say the most with a skirt. They're warmer than socks and keep the wind out. I can wear them casually and to dress up something frumpy. They're my all-out wardrobe (and attitude) lifesaver.

Today I walked into a classroom full of women, all of us prepared to talk about our scariest selves. To write about our darkest, shadowed shames and to let them be dissected, trusting strangers. We came to celebrate together.

About half of the room was wearing knee-high black boots.

I surreptitiously sized up my booted sisters to decide whether we did indeed belong to the same tribe. All writers. All women. I noticed that the teacher had on her black boots too. I knew her to be a clear, confident and gutsy writer who was well respected for going-all-the-way with her literary career. I secretly thanked my boots for gaining me admission to this club of accomplished and self assured women, and hoped I wasn't just a lot of black vinyl when the time came to share my stuff.

As we went around the room, unloading our fears, our whos and hows and whys, our tales of grief and sorrow and broken and reclaimed dreams I knew that I was not the only one who expects the Super Hero to show up even when I feel less than super. And my membership card was not revoked.

And yes, I do belong to the fancy footwear club. As do all the other women I know, boots or sneakers or crocs, who show up when they'd rather hide out. Who have the courage to take a good look at themselves just for the opportunity to grow, and learn, and maybe share something that can help another sister. Who acknowledge the unspeakable alongside the angelic in themselves and (even if for just a second) see that marriage as a work of art. Who are willing to learn to say "yes" and "no" for themselves, knowing that that is what makes the world a better place.

On further reflection, I think I wear the boots to set the bar. I know I'm bootworthy, and that's my Truth. When I wear them, costume or not, I know that somewhere in there there's the sassy, fearless, woman unafraid to express her opinions and stand firm in her convictions, even if I feel more like sweats and shapeless sweatshirts of uncertainty and self-doubt.

Today I wear my boots for you.

Peace,
Darcy
Namaha Healing Arts

The Bigger Picture

It's not the whole image. I can see the dog balancing the ball on his nose and the teenagers fighting over the magazine in the background, and the car running the stop sign. In high color I observe the flower vendor on the corner and the crab apples that have spilled from his basket and the toddler scurrying after one into the cobbled street.

I can savor each intricate detail. The broken thread in the pin-stripe on the elderly gentleman's lapel. He appears forlorn; I can see the tear collecting at the corner of his eye. I can even see the torn binding of the book he is reading, which obscures its title. As I get closer, I can make out the name on the cat's collar - "Hermione." I can almost pick out the texture of her tongue as she grooms her downy breast. I notice the broken spoke in the adult-sized tricycle as it narrowly misses the toddler in the street. I can practically smell the popcorn popping in the wagon on the paved path along the top of the bridge.

Every detail, every brush stroke.

And yet, in the back of it all lurks a menacing alleyway, incongruous to my impression of the scene. It's purple-green walls surely conceal evils secreted from this innocent urban event. Despite all the gaiety of the day lit square, my eyes are repeatedly drawn to its depths.

Upon closer inspection, I notice this grotesque emptiness blots out a great deal of the canvas, a netherworld where unimagined and unsavory elements pace, menacing and patient.

With respect to the antics of the sunlit crowd, I conjure that what is ominous in the darkness is treacherous, to be avoided at all costs, the brightly-lit scenario a safe haven from its questioning shadow.

What's down the dark alley?

As I now juxtapose the two visual impressions, the known chaos against the unformed, darkling way, I notice just how bright and lively are the images of light. As I penetrate even more closely the images become almost garish in their literality - their precision. A crumb stuck to a cheek. A skinned knee. A drop of saliva hanging from the lip of the expectant and obese hound. It all becomes a little too much. The unknown becomes almost a welcome flavor, bland, subtle, the delicacy of a lavendered salt, more scent than taste.

As I teeter on this precipice of known vs unknown I feel a battle for an unclaimed part of myself. At the pivot is the assumption of contrast, dissonance, and all moments have coalesced into this one. The conflux of utterly known, utterly described and experienced, and the pregnancy of what will be, what may be, what is not yet. The realized vs the potent.

To then unfocus my eyes, and gasping, take a further step backward, prepared to drink all in as one whole, and then, having breathed deeply, with purpose, to notice...

...My God! Not one image but a vast argument in triptych ever expanding, ever describing and ever questioning. The darkness and detail now but texture on a far greater landscape, stretching into infinity, or so I must conceive from the point in space and time where I reside.

And so how may I presume to guess what lurks in shadows, or the meanings of crumbs and crab apples? I reel and teeter and brace to topple. I remain barely balanced, then am poised, with nothing available to me but surrender to the Mystery. And I do not fall.

But I see, I breathe, and I wonder.

And finally I am borne up, soaring, to a position unprecarious, cradled.

Peace,
Darcy Molloy
Namaha Healing Arts