Pink Pony Skin Boots

Been thinking about my brother Luke--my brother who died--since reading this post...

A story for you:

The first California surf trip Luke and I took together, ten or twelve years ago, we spent a night in Santa Monica, had dinner on the 3rd Street Promenade and after dinner there was a shoe store, with heeled, calf-high pink pony skin boots on sale, which I promptly bought, even though Luke shook his head and laughed at me. I was living in San Francisco at the time, working in advertising where you are encouraged to dress creatively. Plus, I was going through this kind of flashy phase--lots of jewelry, unusual shoes and accessories. Plus somehow the boots worked with the big-city fashion of the times. In short, I rocked those boots.

I still had them when I moved to Santa Barbara to live with Luke, and when he died, I wanted to wear them to his memorial service, like a little joke between us...something he thought was ridiculous, because so much of what I used to wear back then he found ridiculous.

(Sample exchange one foggy morning, me pulling on a short knit cape I'd recently bought:

Luke: "Is that new?"

Me: "Yeah, isn't it great?"

Luke (after a pause): "Can you still take it back?")

Anyway, the evening of his memorial service, I had on a nice black dress, was sitting on the edge of my bed trying to put on the pink pony skin boots, and I just couldn't do it. Finally, a friend of mine came and sat with me, told me not to worry about the boots, helped me into some plain black heels.

I haven't worn the boots since.

But I've taken them with me, up to Seattle to be with my now-husband, out to Colorado. I've known for a while I won't wear them again. Still: hard to get rid of, because they remind me of that surf trip, of that dive-y Santa Monica hotel, of how Luke's girlfriend had made him into a mermaid sand sculpture on the beach that afternoon, how the next morning there was no surf so Luke and I went for pancakes while his girlfriend slept in. They remind me, too, of the happy, devil-may-care life I had my last couple years in San Francisco.

I did sell them, though, at our garage sale. Which is progress, I guess. I know, anyway, that I'm now embracing the life I have ahead of me, whereas for a long time all I could see was what I'd lost. I have a different life now. One that doesn't involve wearing pink pony skin boots. And that's OK. I was that girl once. It was a glorious time--a time I'll always remember. But now--although completely, utterly, totally different--is pretty darned glorious too.

Maybe that's why I can finally let the boots go...

XOXO