Running Barefoot

by Amy Harmon

We made do by trading on our skills, whether we had an actual sign out front or not.

In very small towns the whole town helps raise the kids. Everybody knows who everybody is, and if something or someone is up to no good, it gets back to the parents before a kid can get home to tell his side of it.

Like a shoe that has lost its mate is never worn again, I had lost my matching part and didn’t know how to run barefoot.

I found that serving my dad and my brothers made me love them more.

There were times, especially the year after my mom’s death, when the grief in our house felt like putting a heavy quilt over your head and trying to breathe.

My books were my friends, and I devoured everything I could get my hands on.

Anne of Green Gables became my best friend, A Little Princess, and Heidi, sources of strength and example. I relished happy endings where kids like me triumphed in spite of hardship. There was always hardship in the stories, and this realization comforted me. I was inspired by sacrifice in The Summer of the Monkeys, and planted a red fern at my mother’s grave for Dan and Ann after reading Where the Red Fern Grows.

As usual, I was tucked into my book, my knees drawn up to support its weight.

Wuthering Heights was NOT on my list of Books-To-Read…and yes, I did have an actual list.

“Do I sound strange to you when I speak?” My heart twisted a little at his vulnerability. I shook my head emphatically. “It’s very slight…I don’t think most people would notice it at all. I guess I have an ear for music, and the rhythm of your voice sounds like music to me, that’s all.”

Utah weather is the most sporadic, unpredictable weather in the country. Folks complain about how you can plant your crops in late spring, only to have to replant twice more because it keeps freezing and killing everything off. We’ve had snow in June and none in December in the same year.

you can’t build walls and then be mad when no one wants to climb over them.”

don’t just assume that people don’t like you because you look different. I, for one, like the way you look.”

True love suffereth long, and is kind; true love envieth not. True love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. True love does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. True love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. True love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things!’“ I stopped for a breath and one emphatic push against Samuel’s chest. “1st Corinthians, Chapter 13. Check it out.”

“Where true love would have redeemed them, obsession condemned them forever.”

in many Native cultures, when you save someone’s life you are responsible for them from that time forward. It’s like you are their keeper or something.” That didn’t sound bad to me. I kind of liked the idea of having Samuel as my life-long guardian.

Somehow honesty was much easier when it was dark.

I listened to music loudly; you can’t really appreciate classical music, the rises, the individual notes and trills, if you don’t turn it up and give it your complete attention. I pushed play and held my breath.

“Sometimes I think if I could just see without my eyes, the way I feel without my hands that I would be able to hear the music.

“My piano teacher, Mrs. Grimaldi, tells me all about the composers when I play their music. She says to be a great composer, I have to love the great composers, and if I don’t know them, how can I love them?” “Which one do you love the most?” I giggled a little. “It’s kind of like my favorite song. It changes all the time, depending on what kind of mood I’m in. Mrs. Grimaldi says I am a very mercurial musician.”

I felt his helplessness and didn’t know how to comfort him. I didn’t understand the relationship he had with his mother, or the difficulty in being of mixed race, from mixed cultures, full of mixed emotions.

“When I was there she told me to study hard, to be proud of my heritage and not be afraid of myself. She said I was Navajo, but I was my father’s son as well. One heritage was not more important than the other.”

There is beauty behind me as I walk There is beauty before me as I walk There is beauty below me as I walk. There is beauty above me as I walk. In beauty I must always walk.

Jane got her man, and she did it with style. Desdemona got her man, and he smothered her.

He closed the few steps between us. “Othello loved Desdemona. He was crazy about her. That was never the problem. Othello’s problem was that he never felt worthy of Desdemona in the first place. He was the ‘black Moor’ and she was the ‘fair Desdemona.’” Samuel’s tone was conversational, but there was a certain wistfulness in his face. “It was too good to be true, too sweet to be reality for too long, so when someone set out to destroy his belief in her, it made more sense to doubt her than to believe that she had truly loved him in the first place.”

It wasn’t until I read the play again, many years later, that I realized we hadn’t been talking about Desdemona and Othello at all.

Sonja said women have many emotions, but only one physical response. When we’re angry we cry. When we’re happy we cry. When we’re sad we cry. When we’re scared, you guessed it, we cry.

“Hózhǫ́ is at the heart of the Navajo religion. It essentially means harmony. Harmony within your spirit, your life, with God. Some people compare it to karma too, the idea that what you put out comes back to you. It is a balance between your body, mind, and spirit.”

But Grandma Yazzie says culture is teaching your children the customs, the traditions, and the stories that have been passed on through the generations. This goes back to language. If the younger generations are not taught the language, we lose the culture. There are no English translations for many of the Navajo words. They carry their own meaning. You lose the meaning, you might lose the lesson in the legend, and you lose your culture.”

He held my gifts in his arms and my heart in his hand.

I don’t have to scream to have heart. I let my actions speak for themselves. No one will outfight me, no one will outrun me, and no one will outshoot me.

It’s a good thing God blesses people with different talents. The world would be in trouble if I were a Marine.

Your individual worth comes from keeping your promises and being a man of character.

I guess none of us really knows what kind of character we truly have until we are really tested.

But here the goal is to make us the same… green. It’s strangely therapeutic after all these years of feeling so torn by my desire to know more about my father’s culture and still be loyal to my mother’s. There’s a whole new culture here.

The world would be a much better place if there were more people like you.

that is the best thing about going to a small school; less competition sometimes means more opportunity.

Some things can’t be explained or shared; they tend to lose their luster when passed around.

Little acts of kindness were easier to perform than words were to speak.

It smelled like safety and soap and my broken dreams. It smelled like coming home feels.

If you push people away for long enough, isolation become a terrible habit. People start to believe you prefer it.

Human beings are not designed to be alone. Our creator gave us smooth, sensitive skin that craves the warmth of other skin. Our arms seek to hold. Our hands yearn to touch. We are drawn to companionship and affection out of an innate need.

Fall was my favorite season, and I was eager to smell it and feel it on my skin.

“You seem angry,” he said smoothly. I wanted to slap him. I was angry. Ridiculously and desperately angry. Why did he have to come back? I didn’t want to deal with old feelings that brought fresh pain. I was through loving people who would only leave.

Here in this small town that keeps you hidden…a princess acting like a pauper, and I just can’t figure it out.”

“I’m washing your hair for the same reason your mother probably did.” “Because my hair is dirty and tangled after playing in the barn?” I teased. “Because it feels good to take care of you.” His voice was both tender and truthful.

The light changes in the autumn. Even at sunrise the angle is different, the intensity softened, muted, like looking through a painting under water.

“Fall has always felt like a chance to start over. I know nature hasn’t designed it that way, that it’s actually the opposite. The leaves fall off the trees, the flowers die, and winter rolls in…but I love it all the same.”

I didn’t want to be the yardstick of righteousness; I was too lacking.

“Would you like to come in for a minute? You could check the house for bad guys, and I could make us something yummy to eat. I think I have ice cream in the freezer and I could make us some hot fudge topping to put on top?” I waggled my eyebrows at him in the dim interior of the truck, and he smiled a little. “Bad guys?” “Oh you know, I’m here all alone, the house is dark. Just look under the beds and make sure no one is hiding in my closet.” “Are you afraid to be alone at night?” His brows were lowered with concern over his black eyes. “Nope. I just wanted to give you a reason to come inside.” His expression cleared, and his voice lowered even further. “Aren’t you reason enough?”