a love letter to a gal in her first cowboy boots
Dear gal in her first cowboy boots,
Pants legs pulled up in the family photo, pigtails, checkered button down shirt, and a huge grin.
This wasn’t showing off, but shining out, sharing these shiny new boots, complete with square toes (“better for growing feet”).
These boots meant horses. Horses meant love and sweat and movement and connection. They meant horse-smell, my nose buried in a soft, fuzzy neck, breathing it all in. They meant whiskery muzzles and hay-scented breath. They meant the wind blowing my hair back as we ran. They meant muddy paddocks, grain hitting a metal bin, and quick lime fizzing on fresh horse pee in the barn. They meant a strong, supple back beneath my seat. They meant early wake-ups, stock shows, numbers pinned to my pointy-collared shirts, polyester Wranglers, burgundy chaps, and a silver-belly cowboy hat.
They meant saddle soap and lead changes and standing four-square for the horsemanship judges. They meant dusty arenas, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams. They meant food trucks, hood-warmed frito pie, and candy at the Shamrock with its life-sized dinosaur out front. They meant icy roads and a bandanna sticking out of the empty bra cup of my riding instructor (she might’ve had that surgery without anesthesia). They meant Shortie the terrier smashed on the highway and a tear from the taciturn cowboy who drove our trailer.
They meant chicken-fried steak at the Village Inn and soda pop. They meant bags full of ribbons and frozen toes, nose, and fingers all winter long. They meant riding bareback during the endless Colorado summers, and sometimes kicking off those boots to feel the long grass brush my feet as I passed through, sweat-stuck to my horse’s back, crossing a magical creek hidden in a grove of blue spruce.
This was the first period for boots. There have been four so far: young girl, wrangler during summers home from college, Rainbow Ranch horsewoman, dancehall disciple.
Boots. Boots. Boots. Boots.
Each time they have meant joy returned, hard work, stepping in shit, learning, and staying (or not) with what moves me, a cowgirl at heart.