Foot traffic

       

  

  

  I half expect to hear
  sad remonstrance that
  feet lead to legs and
  heaven help us all af-
  ter that. But I trust
  their information. 

I injured a foot lately, and while it is recovering, it disturbs the other foot to submit to pressures which distort its reports to me. It's a pity that the mind, so famous for dualities that no one has a clear tally of them anymore, is only less aware.

I give you the stoicism of a Ben Hogan, playing hurt before the aggression sport of football made a cult of martyrs, who adjusted his game knowingly - versus a hypocrite of the front page today (take your pick), who seems to be the last to know he is maimed. I will never not treasure the sensibilities of the feet again, honesty not least among them. But never before, I'm ashamed to say, had I felt the extent of my debt to those extremities, as unequivocally central to my sense of place, on many levels. Now I savour everything they tell me, with the consciousness of a great gift. It goes so far as to ease the mind of pressure to report, even to propose delight or regret.

My dog, Whit, is way ahead of me in this perception. I have always admired his movement as an element of his character; but I've not appreciated how it has shaped his aplomb. Of course this is elementary "phys ed," but we can forget the basis for it. I find one can tire of news furnished by the mind, but not by the foot. On the contrary. The most modest suspension of its feedback truly heightens regard for that content, and that gift for securing our place in relation to it, which can only make one glad to awaken. Moreover, the memories of the foot are surprisingly indestructible, so that the lake road we ran in crew workouts, still unraked of stones, is a living treasure.

  

    Isn't this the path we

    took to school, Auguste? 

    It is our school, Hercule.

vii  Mathias Lauridsen