Cowboy Boots

dancing toddler feet

“Nice cowboy boots!” comments Nora’s father, Ned, as we pack her stuff into the car on the last day of freshman year. “Where’d you get them?” He jokes, knowing that his wife Michelle packaged them and sent them to me. Nora bought them for me at the Shoe Department in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She has a version of the boots in a lighter color, with more embroidery.

I never thought I would catch myself wearing these boots with confidence. In New Mexico, cowboy boots are worn by the rancheros, the cow herders, and the lovers of green chile that feel connected to those New Mexico roots. They wear them with bootcut jeans that hug them at the waist, bedazzled on the butt pockets with sequins and rhinestones. I never wanted the cowboy boots or the bedazzled jeans in New Mexico. I was young of course and the most important thing to me was that nobody would notice me, to blend into the group. So I wore my checkered vans and leggings and sweatshirts.

I never liked country music either, I thought it represented that land that I was trying to get so far away from. The Squash Blossom Boys bluegrass that made me dance in my little toddler shoes at the farmers market was pushed away, for Ariana Grande, and maybe PINK? The music I listened to at 13 escapes me now. In junior year I was asked to write an essay about a time that I changed my mind about a prejudice I had. I, of course, wanted to spin the essay in a way that showed I had never had a prejudice. My mother was the one who suggested I write about Wagon Wheel, by Old Crow Medicine. I had phoned and told her I loved to wash the dishes at boarding school, with that song blasting on the speaker. So I wrote the essay. Rebecca Solnit is famously on the side of cowboy boots and country music. I wrote about how she and the mountains and that song had brought back the bounce from my dancing toddler feet. She told me to go to the East Coast with my western head held high, to even throw on a cowboy hat. This was funny and far-fetched for 16-year-old me; I don’t own a cowboy hat, and she was born in Connecticut.

In senior year I played folk duets, me on the guitar and someone else on the piano, singing Tom Waits, John Prine, Gillian Welch, and Guy Clark. My senior project was to write an album. What flowed out of me can only be described as folk. I borrowed Izzy Raynes's red cowboy boots, and she said they fit me so well she would give them to me. They were a size too big, but I didn’t mind.

The lullabies I remember my mother singing the most were Sweet Baby James and Long Black Veil. I knew all the words to Sweet Baby James, but not the title, so I called it the cowboy song. If anyone was even mildly paying attention to my music taste as a 5-year-old, I’m sure they could guess what a Cleo Dorothy original song would sound like.

Gillian Welch was played constantly in my house when I was growing up. My mother was asked to perform in the School of Architecture and Planning’s talent show one year. She practiced for a month, learned basic guitar chords, and mastered Gillian Welch’s Look at Miss Ohio. Me and my brother, ages 6 and 9, had the song so stuck in our heads that we would sing it in funny voices. My mom got sad, “ Well I’m just not going to sing it then if I sound like that.” “Noooo”, we chorused from the backseat of the car. I still feel bad about it sometimes. She has a beautiful voice. It was one of the best parts of my childhood.

Then Nora came to be my roommate. She showed up on that sunny day in September in a lavender tank top, jean shorts, and cowboy boots. She showed up herself, in all her gingham, midwest, cowboy boot greatness. So grateful am I for her and that sunny day.

After Nora and Katie came back from spring break together with matching cowboy boots and reptileland t-shirts, my feet felt a need for them. Maybe I felt a need for their closeness, and their matching clothing, but I also needed the boots. The next time Nora went home she bought the boots. There was only one pair in my size. Michelle wrapped them carefully and sent them with a handwritten note in a brown paper package. I wear them with shorts, skirts, jeans, and the white dress with embroidered flowers.

My 19th birthday was yesterday. My girlfriend took me on a surprise overnight to Guelph, Ontario. We stayed in a little apartment on top of a barn. Baby goats chewed our hair and our shirts. Highland cows and ducks roamed the grass. Winnie the pig fell asleep on my feet, and Holly the goat fell asleep in Lola’s arms. It was one of the most thoughtful birthday presents I have ever received. She knew I missed the cows at Putney, so she found cows for me. Lola had told me to wear the cowboy boots before I knew where we were going.

Cowboy boots are trendy now, I’m not going to sit here, and write this, and pretend like they’re not. But I’d like to think that within the context of my feet, they are something more than that. Thank you Nora for opening my heart, and thank you to my mother for singing country songs to me, you two have more in common than you realize.