New Boots
An essay about boots, blisters, and the adventures that shape us.
I am trying something new: essays. New things scare me because I am the ultimate creature of habit. Writing essays that are not focused on theology, church politics, or the latest New Times’ Bestseller in the category of theology is an invitation that I am extending myself to breathe and to use my writing as a respite from the busyness of church.
I will post these essays every Thursday and after the first month, the first essay will be open to all subscribers, but the subsequent weeks will be available to paid subscribers.
My mom purchased my first pair of boots for a backpacking trip I took as a Boy Scout. With a hand-me-down backpack that did not fit properly, I did not know that before using these boots on a multi-day hike, I needed to break in the boots first. Sure, I wore the boots around our house for a few days, but that was not enough time to break in the stiff leather ahead of the hills of Western Pennsylvania. The rain we encountered on the first day was a saving grace. Because the boots were stiff, my feet were going to blister, and they did. Rain-soaked feet usually blister, but the boots' leather softened in the rain. A terrible situation was improved too bad with the rainy weather.
I wore these boots until my toes poked holes through the toe box. The next pair arrived just in time for me to work at a summer camp, living in a platform tent for nearly three months in the hills of the Shenandoah Valley. Every morning, I would lace the boots up before leaving my tent, and each night, after unlacing the boots, I would gently place them outside my tent. This was an attempt to rid the tent of the smell of teenage feet. I wore those boots for a few summers. At the end of each season, I would clean and condition the leather and remove the old laces, replacing them with a new pair.
I have what some might call wide feet. My feet do not feel wide because I have never known them in any other way. Finding boots that properly fit wide feet makes the search for new boots more difficult and, at the same time, more fun because I am part of an exclusive club. My feet are unique (which sounds better than “special”), so I need unique boots and boots that will withstand the wide base of my 6’3” frame. Boots that will support me on trails and the office. I did not know that I always had wide feet, but I do know that as a child, I rarely had shoes that fit me the way that my shoes fit me today. A crammed toe box in a boot is just as uncomfortable as a jammed toe box in a sneaker or loafer. The only difference is that you are more likely to carry a heavy backpack while wearing boots than loafers.
There is a feeling that well-fitting boots or shoes offer their new partner. You do not always know right way when ill-fitting boots find their way into your life but eventually, you will find out. But well-fitting boots? You will know that feeling as soon as your feet find their way inside and the laces are secured. If you have not had this feeling, I hope you soon experience it.
A few years ago, I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Near the beginning of the book, she recalls losing one of her boots while hiking solo on the Pacific Crest Trail. She wrote, “I’d removed my hiking boots and the left one had fallen…first catapulting into the air when my enormous backpack toppled onto it…It bounced off of a rocky outcropping several feet beneath me before disappearing into the forest canopy below, impossible to retrieve.”[i] Strayed held her right boot close to her body for a moment and then threw the boot with every ounce of energy she had into the forest below her.
The other day, I received a new pair of boots in the mail. A pair of Keen Targhee III Waterproof Mids were delivered to my front porch on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. Like Strayed during her hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, I was able to have REI deliver a new pair when my last reached the end of their usefulness (though delivery to our townhouse was probably easier than Strayed meeting her boots at a stop along the PCT).
As I cut the tape on the rain-soaked box with the Boy Scout pocketknife I have carried since I was 11, the smell of new leather burst from the box. The smell of new adventures. The smell of new trails to hike. The smell of new memories of hiking with my family. The smell of blisters and tired feet ahead of me. The new leather smell will not last forever, maybe a week, but standing in our kitchen is a moment that I share with others who are opening boxes of new adventures ahead.
The right pair of boots can make any hike that much better in the same way that the wrong pair of boots can ruin a hike. Too big, too wide, too small, or too narrow, not waterproof, too waterproof, or a broken lace, and you are in for a terrible time. I learned this through experience. Wearing boots that were not waterproof to hike on my first backpacking trip ensured that blisters accompanied me nearly minutes after we stepped off in the Spring rain. Working on construction sites after college, I learned the value of steel-toed boots and that trying to save a buck on my footwear was a bad idea after a coworker dropped a junction box off a ladder, and my foot broke the box’s fall. My wife teases me that I obsess about which shoes to wear, but it’s because I have learned over time, through success and failure, that while I do not mind being cold or hot, I do mind my feet being uncomfortable.
New boots matter. My new boots that feel stiff today will be broken in soon enough, supporting my feet as I hike through Great Falls National Park. My new boots that have the scent of a leather shop with fresh pieces ready to be made into something new and useful soon enough hold the scent of wet leather, sweat, and mud. My new boots are clean today but will soon be covered in mud and dust, which will be tracked into my Jeep and eventually make their way into my house.
No matter how hard we try to leave the mud and dust of a hike or day on a job site behind us, the mud and dust make their way home with us. We will sweep and vacuum the floors and rugs and gently clean our boots, but down in the fibers, the mud and dust of where we have been is now part of the boots that are not-so-new. We carry that mud and dust with us from one adventure to the next, connecting one hike and one day to the next, depositing the places we have been on our doormat. When the day comes that we must retire a pair of boots, and the new pair arrives, after we have laced and tied each boot, after we have doublechecked our daypack and made sure our Boy Scout pocketknife is secured in our front left pocket, we will step on the doormat, and at that moment our new boots are no longer new. What we thought was new is now connected to the places we have been, the people we have met, and the adventures we hold as cherished memories.
[i] Strayed, Chery. Wild. Alfred A. Knopf. 2012. Page 3.
Excellent!
I really enjoyed this! Thanks. Plan to subscribe.