Bare Feet

Warm weather outside means warm floors inside, so off come the two pairs of socks, the thin ones and the thick ones with non-slip soles. It has been months since I walked without socks or slippers, and I'm surprised by the textures, by the interesting news my feet bring me about the world. My toes dig into the carpet fibers as if they were sand on the beach. And when I step outside for the newspaper my soles are shocked by the cold hard surface. I had forgotten how bare feet feel.

This brings to mind a line from "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poem in praise of the creator and creation: "Nor can foot feel, being shod."

In bundling up for winter we numb the senses. We have to. And in spring comes an awakening not just of nature but of our capacity to appreciate it.

The next lines of the poem are: "And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things." It is the way I feel today barefoot — that the elements I usually ignore are waiting to restore me.