Feeling My Home: An Observation

This is something you might take for granted. This is something you probably haven’t thought about. When you get out of bed in the morning, and your feet touch the ground, do you think about what it feels like? Do you think about the texture of the wood, carpet, or tile, beneath your feet? You probably don’t. I don’t blame you. A lot of people don’t. But think about this…

Picture me, Margaret, Margar, at eight years old. I was a long lanky awkward freckled face who never brushed her hair. And I walked a lot, or rather, I clumped a lot. My feet made this hard clumping sound when I walked. I had to wear braces inside my shoes to hold my feet in place. My feet had a mind of their own. They would both turn outwards. This was too much for me and my mother, bless her for putting on the braces almost every morning, to handle. So I went in for surgery.

The doctors cut my heal chords, made me flat, and I was on my way back home in a wheel chair with cast. I had the cast on for a long time. Too long, so long, in fact that I actually stuck a light bright down the cast so they could cut it so I could itch my leg. They came off eventually. I was ecstatic. I was going to get my first pair of real shoes! They were Buzz Light-year and they light up when I walked.

The shoes were quickly cast aside however. I remember I was walking into the living room, bare footed. I sat down on the step to slide down into the room. I wasn’t very good at stairs yet. Then the magic happened. “Mommy! Mommy! I can feel the carpet! I can feel the carpet!” I was lost in a different world. I was feeling the Earth; I was feeling my home for the first time. The fibers tickled my feet. They were the softest things in the world. I was so happy to be alive. Everything made sense now because everything had a touch to it. I could understand everything. My fifth sense was finally in play. I was finally, complete as a person. From then on, and even now, I would go barefoot everywhere I possibly could.
They say it’s the little things. Waking up in the morning, and touching the floor, touching the Earth, is my little thing.