By Jamie Strickland
Have you ever put your bare feet deep down into freshly tilled farm dirt? If not, you should. There’s nothing quite like the feeling. I’m talking about that good, fluffy, fresh dirt, so soft and fine, like baby powder. It’s warm in the evening after baking in the sun all day (not hot, just warm), and it’s cool first thing in the morning before the sun has had a chance to get to it.
You walk away with the fine, powdery soil coating your feet and have to wipe it off before going in the house. You can rinse it off, but then it turns dark brown and muddy and sticky. Wiping it off dry is better.
Beach sand is pretty nice on bare feet too, but it doesn’t really compare. Plus it’s usually too hot to really enjoy, except in the evening. Evening is my favorite time to be on the beach anyway. The heat of the day is over, the risk of sunburn is gone, and most of the people are off to shower off their sunblock and go to dinner. Just me and the birds left, that’s how I prefer the beach. Sitting in my chair, digging my toes down deeper and deeper.
Fresh mountain stream water also feels pretty great on your feet, especially if you’ve been hiking for a while. Stop next to the stream, take your heavy shoes and sweaty socks off — notice the tiny bits of sock fuzz and the imprint from the weave of the fabric that left its pattern on your skin — and just step right in. Feel the shock of the cold and then the flow of the water. The little pebbles under your feet make you wobble because it hurts a little bit to step directly on them. The twigs and pieces of leaf flow by.
I’m clearly pretty desperate to spend some quality time outside.
Anyway, that’s what this time of year reminds me of. The feeling of that fresh field dirt on my between my toes and wiggling back and forth a little until I sink down past my ankles. And the haze in the air after it’s just been stirred up, mixing out in the distance with the yellow puffs of pollen blowing down from the longleaf pines.
My high-school best friend’s house backed up to acres and acres of farm land, just on the other side of a thin strip of woods, and we used to just go walk in it, run in it, kick it up a little bit. I don’t know why it felt so good, or why I remember it so vividly.
Maybe it’s some natural connection that we all have to the earth, or maybe I’m some kind of weirdo who just likes to put my feet in things. What can I say. It feels pretty great.
I should probably apologize to that farmer for messing up his nice, neat rows. But somehow, I’m guessing if he knew how much joy it brought me, he wouldn’t have minded.
