Wellies World

These boots were worn by a fearless person. I'm not sure where she went, but if the idea of flowered wellies didn't scare her, nothing would. 

She'd definitely have had to be brave enough to appear in them instead of the black boots everyone else was pulling on. But as soon as she saw them, she knew they were coming home with her, and that was that.

These guys didn't work with prints--only solids. Black was OK but brown or copper was better. After a few months of clomping around in them at work she started wearing them at parties and even restaurants (if it was pouring, at least).

These boots know nothing about pandemics or staying home or fear. They want to go out, out, out and plant bulbs in early spring, squishing wet, ready ground under your feet. They are not interested in half measures.

They are not terribly interested in immuno-suppressant drugs, either, and whether that will hurt your chances of skating through a pandemic without harm. If they were interested, they would likely just say, "Better to die than live with whatever the virus could do to your lungs."

The boots are telling me to stop reading and watching the news.

Will I be less scared if I put them on? The woman who wore them is shaking her head up and down vigorously. Do I need something brown? Can I get away with green khakis?

The woman is saying desperate times call for desperate measures, Mrs. Lovett, so pair me with khakis if you must.

A few weeks ago if you told me all the restaurants and bars and bookstores theaters and hair salons would be closed and even the dentist if you're scheduled for a cleaning and it was doubtful you could go on a train or plane to see your family, I would have said you were crazy. If you would have said the grocery store shelves would empty out and I wouldn't be able to find toilet paper or even milk sometimes, I would have said "get out of town."

But this is our stop and we had to get off here, at least temporarily (I keep telling myself). I want to get back on the train but I don't know how so I'm looking at the boots to see if they'll tell me a story. My story is that I used to be fearless about a lot of things. I barreled ahead and through and even ugly illnesses didn't stop me. Now I'm worried about going to the grocery store and yesterday I put on plastic gloves just to go in there.

This is stupid, I think, and I need to snap out of it. When I was little I saw a movie about a woman during war time who drove a yellow Rolls Royce. She was eating in an elegant dining room with bombs going off all around her and didn't care, even when one of the explosions threw her onto the floor.

I want to be that woman, though Hollywood movies always lie about everything and if it had really happened, the woman would probably not have gotten up unscathed. The problem is that movies and plays are in my bones, and at some level I still believe them, which must be why I turned into a playwright and started writing novels for middle grade kids and young adults.

Any... way. Where am I? About a year and a half ago I moved into a new house with my husband. We call it Barbie and Ken's dream house because it was built in 1957. The only real problem it has is a steep driveway--and a few months after moving there, I fell FLAT on my bum on the driveway because I couldn't see the ice.

And then -- absolutely NOTHING happened. I didn't break anything or even bruise.

I got up and thanked God for a miracle and then laughed like a hyena, going down the hill on the grass so I didn't slip again. I was wearing these boots when I did it.

These boots must have belonged to someone fearless. I need to find her.