It is June, the season for the footloose.
You look down and see flip-flops or gladiator sandals.
You may even be wise as a cat, which is to say barefoot.
Or you may still have your snowshoes on.
We’re in the month of the sweet Strawberry Moon, when spring and summer boop noses, yet winter dogs our feet. Mika leaps like a Samoyed scaling snowdrifts. Anka wears custom Uggs twelve months a year.
Snowy explores on wise white toes.
Where we last encountered this courageous candle, Snowy was shivering through springtime. Bereaved of her person, unable to recognize her planet, the great white whisper took Tabby’s Place one breath at a time.
This is the way of the windswept and the wise. When mercy wins the day, the former become the latter.
But even a day was too much for Snowy to bite off, an arctic agenda too frozen to pierce. Far better to chew the moments, meditate on each cautious flower.
There were the meals as constant as chimes, tuna matins through turkey vespers, a lilting liturgy of the meats. There were the volunteers as jaunty as robins, roving nests for broken hearts.
There was Ash, named for fire’s echo but warm as any hearth, Snowy’s sister in grief and resurrection. There were new friends soft as moss and strange as fever.
There was warmth without burning. There was devotion without haste.
And there, to her own great surprise, was Snowy, enjoying this life.
Her cautious feet sank into the hours, then the days. The lessons of loss loosened. Calm had come. There would be no unexpected ice storm this time, no need to go from gentle soul to gladiator. Snowy got to keep her life’s peace today. She got to bring it on a sleepover tonight, and on into tomorrows that lined up like daffodils, spreading dizzily down the days.
Snowy flexed her frosty toes, warm in the sun of security.
Snowy stopped worrying that another shoe would drop.
More accurately, Snowy, being cat, being wise, never had her eyes on kicks.
Although every cat finds the words “mukluk” hilarious, no cat fears falling footwear. Not even Snowy, the cat who was burned, thinks of fire drills or espadrilles.
Not even Snowy, the cat who walked through broken glass, worries about the next cut.
Happy at last, happy in full, the first snowdrop of spring enters summer without fear. Snowy does not torch today with what she may lose tomorrow. Snowy does not wait for the other shoe to drop.
Snowy, being wise, being cat, is a barefoot spirit. Mercy has won the day.
In our Skechers and our skepticism, we are still on the battlefield. When we’re at our happiest, nestled under the warmest arm or eating the sweetest strawberry or listening to Bruce’s “Badlands,” anxiety stomps us flat.
Do we get to keep this peace?
How, exactly, might this go wrong?
When will the other shoe drop?
We look up for sharp stilettos and crushing combat boots. We cower under crash helmets on the sunniest day of the year.
We forget that most days, life is blissfully barefoot.
The preposterous possibility of joy is, in fact, real.
Sadness has its hour, but healing has all the time in the world, without haste.
We are windswept, but if we shelter with drifters like Snowy, we may yet become wise. Mercy may yet win the day.
But be advised: on this battlefield, the winner takes all.
Forget falling shoes, and you just might remember to laugh out loud like a goofus doofus.
Forget hypothetical disasters, and you just might high-dive into moments that live your whole life long.
Forget all you could lose, and you just might gain the peace that pierces all circumstances.
Remember Snowy. Remember this life that you get to keep, in big enough peaces to keep you warm. Remember to take off your shoes. You are standing on holy ground.