Walking Through

This shoe shop in my neighborhood displays shoes on a pedestal that is itself a set of legs and feet.

I used to depend completely on words to help me navigate my way, as if having an intellectual understanding of what I'm going through and an explanation for others could carry the day.

But the things that are before us must be walked through, whether words come along for the ride or not. My body has come to mean so much more to me these days--I feel things in my joints and in my chest and remember that I have not quite laid them down. I feel my toes pressing into the earth when there is nowhere to stand but here, and when I'm not sure which way to go I let one foot simply move in front of the other.

I also think about time, and how it is the space to walk through as I move from this moment to the next, from this year into the ones that follow. How even if nothing else changes, the page on the calendar will, and this brings me some deep reassurance. As if I can trust time to move me even if I cannot move myself.

While the words still bring me comfort when they come my way, I know now there is so much more carrying me. I feel it it my joints and in my chest, in the wood and pavement and dirt beneath my feet.