tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21001963.post1221302067383162103..comments2023-10-26T20:05:14.669+07:00Comments on intrepid flame: Here to ThereJabizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060918134697370964noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21001963.post-45001847698949660292016-03-03T23:12:55.232+07:002016-03-03T23:12:55.232+07:00Hi,
My barefoot journey started in 2006. This is t...Hi,<br />My barefoot journey started in 2006. This is the nacient blog about it http://iambarefoot.blogspot.com/ <br /><br />I didn't take off my shoes to prove anything. My family didn't want to be around me. My feet reeked.<br /><br />I admire cody lundin and am better for knowing him, but it's not a form of imitation.<br /><br />Foot health, that was the first reason. Then I discovered 101 more.<br />I feel closer to a primal humanity. To animal. to nature.<br />I pay more attention, go more slowly, and am awakened by the sensations of the moment - all qualities that are part of a healthy life path.<br />I feel stronger, and judging by the utterly stunned reaction of perfect strangers, I must be insane.<br />"Where are your shoes", "Don't your feet hurt", "You're crazy"<br />These are from people I don't even know, people who would have nothing to say if I hadn't taken off my shoes, which could be the thing that is most striking: going barefoot brings me closer to people. It creates an opening that had been plugged up with shoes. I'd like to say they are filled with compassionate wonder, reaching out to me from lips loosened by the sight of a man's toes. It's often scorn, disgust, walking barefoot on a bathroom floor. Mister, the soles of your shoes collect more shit and are harder to clean than my feet, and besides, I don't eat with them.<br />The danger. Oh, the broken glass everywhere, the rocks and prickers. Truth: the most blood I've lost came from stepping on broken glass in my own bedroom. I think I broke a toe stubbing it the road. That's a lesson: that the hardest thing on a bare foot is pavement. Once you get off the roads things go better.<br />Wearing shoes indoors is an affront to many cultures. Not us. Bare feet are considered ugly in American.<br />Isn't barefoot the ideal? It represents the beach, green green grass, childhood, pregnancy, freedom without care.<br />I love most of all, when my love says to someone, "He can run barefoot across the desert floor". <br /><br />https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2016/02/29/why-kids-should-go-barefoot-more-and-probably-adults-too/ <br /><br />Thanks, man<br />Thatcher Bohrmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14933475808359687565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21001963.post-51953434925526698762016-02-29T10:38:08.795+07:002016-02-29T10:38:08.795+07:00My feet too remained dry, cracked, callous. It has...My feet too remained dry, cracked, callous. It has much to do with living in the dry climate of Arizona, but also as I rarely wear socks when just walking around in my tennis shoes. I enjoy walking outside barefoot, out in my yards tepping across the rock pathways, sans shoes. Shoes on the beach violates my soul.<br /><br />I wrote something long long ago, pre-internet, pre-computer, that I doubt it even exists-- how my feet got smart.<br /><br />I never hiked as a kid. I walked, explored the neighborhood, but going off into the woods was something I did not even do until high school. The irony is that this became my favorite activity, a place where I might feel something akin to a spiritual feeling. Out in the wild.<br /><br />The story is my friend, Jimmy. He was by far the coolest kind in our group- athletic, classic blonde hair / blue eyes, always a bit of mischief. He got beer easily, he had pot, he played Led Zeppelin loud in his basement. <br /><br />This one time maybe in 11th grade, early Spring, Jimmy did not show up to school. We heard from his girlfriend that he escaped to the woods, a place known as Morgan Run. Three of us decided to go out Friday afternoon and check up on him, with the directions she provided. There was a spot where you had cross Morgan Run, a creek. You had to step put on two rocks, then hop on and off of a tall knife shaped rock in the middle. I was sure i would fall into the cold creek, but somehow I stumbled my way across. <br /><br />About a mile in we found Jimmy, smoking a cigarette, next to his small tent, and he smiled when we showed up, especially was we had snagged a few beers. We talked, found out he just goes a bit stir crazy in town, and likes to get out in the woods for peace. I never even thought about doing something like that (I was definitely a dork). <br /><br />As dusk moved in, the two friends I came with said they had to get back home (one worked, the other??). It seemed wrong to go, so I surprised myself when I said I would stay overnight. Jimmy was the one in the group I knew least, and he beamed and said, love to have you "Al" (who called me "Al"?). We walked back with them, and again, I surprised myself in getting across the stream. <br /><br />The two friends took off. Jimmy and I headed back to the camp spot. He was ahead of me on that stream, and I stepped 1-2 on the first rocks, then up on that knife shaped rock. Then I felt myself rock forward, then back, then forward, then back... and I fell into the cold stream. Jimmy, ahead of me, spun on a rock, and lurched, and he too fell in the stream.<br /><br />There were were both soaked, in weather than was likely going down to the 40s. We shambled back to the fire, and spent an entire night trying to warm up at the fire. I don;t remember sleeping that night i the tent, I was shaking so much I could not fall asleep.<br /><br />Maybe I over dramatize the event in hindsight, but it was an experience that bonded me and Jimmy as friends. The morning brought sun, light, and life. We made it back, crossing the stream with a bit more confidence.<br /><br />For some reason, the experience made me want to do more hiking and camping, maybe it was the facing something and getting through it. The idea of being self contained for a few days, away from society, melded with my puny teenage angst.<br /><br />In a few years, as a Geology major, hiking and camping became part of the routine and my recreation. I noticed something; that when I started doing this, my feet always seemed to be stubbing against rocks, or stepping on the one that was least steady. I always had to watch my feet, to gauge where I should step. But at some point, my feet seemed to get smarter, and so smart, that when I hiked, I could spend more time looking at the places around me, than watching the ground.<br /><br />My feet got really smart, so that they just motored along.<br /><br />The last 10 years or so, my hiking has tailed off some (excepting outings like a Grand Canyon hike last April with Todd Conaway), and it seems like my feet lost some of their intelligence. But I know they just need to go out more. <br /><br />That's my foot story.Alanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02980801837743251948noreply@blogger.com