Goodbye Boots

I am having a very hard time letting go of these boots. Even though I wore them here with the express purpose of replacing them and leaving them behind. The soles are worn down badly, the insides are torn to hell, and there's a 1 inch gap in the back seam of the left one.

But oh, when I put them on, it's like putting on a second foot. I pull the laces and my feet sigh and relax.

They've taken me all around the town, in many many towns. Ottawa, of course, but Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, San Francisco, Davis, Chicago, New Orleans, Portland, Berlin and Dublin. Saggart, Rathcoole, Wolfville, Green Bay, Lunenburg, Stouffville, Ballantrae, all those stops along the 7.

There is a lot of ground ground into these boots. Memories counted in silica grains.

I've been wearing this style of boots for years now, since living in Halifax, I think, or maybe the year after, so nigh on a decade. Each time I wore a pair of them past repair, I'd think -maybe it's time for a change and so I'd look around for a reasonable replacement and then I wouldn't find one and I'd buy another pair of these.

Somewhere in the last two and a half or three years, Fluevog decided to stop making them. It's more painful than it should be. They're just boots. Again this time, I can't find a decent replacement. Everything is too plain, not plain enough, too high, too low, too this too that, Not These Boots.

But I can't get these boots anymore. CT and I were all over eBay and other corners of the internet looking for an extra pair. To no avail.

Oh, my beloved black boots, you've served me well. You've been kind and faithful companions through all kinds of mistreatment and crazy conditions and not one shine in your long long life.

May your afterlife in an Irish landfill be sweet.