“Here they are Stevie. Grandmère made them for you.”
I looked at the light brown leather moccasins, at the rawhide laces around the tops. I inhaled the smoky leather smell. But what overwhelmed my eyes was the beads, the coloured flowers on the top of each foot, each flower carefully sewn with brightly coloured beads. They sparkled in the low winter sun, blue, red, some green. I noticed the circles of beads, not full circles, only arcs, with smaller ones inside, forming layers of coloured arcs, like the petals of a flower.
“Here, let’s try them on,” said my mother.
Timidly, I placed my left foot in the one moccasin. It fit! My foot felt cuddly and warm inside, as the soft leather enveloped my toes, up to my ankles.
“Let’s lace them up!”
She tied the rawhide laces around my calves. Now my whole foot and lower leg felt warm and snug.
“Now the other one.”
With the second one on and laced up, my feet felt light and free, as if I could run and run through the snow!”
Stepping outside the back porch into the snow, I looked up at the kitchen window. There was my Grandmère, her round dusky face and soft kind eyes looking down at me.
She smiled. I smiled back as I ran into the snow!
With the laces done up, my feet and calves felt warm and snug. I really liked that feeling. It was safe. I didn’t have that feeling very often. When I did have it, it wasn’t safe. When my mother cuddled me, she was always drunk, and I couldn’t trust her. I never knew what she would do. Would she smother me, like she did with my baby sister? Would she pass out with her arms locked around me, so I would be trapped, unable to escape?
But with the moccasins laced up, I felt warm and snug, but safe and free! I could run as fast as I wanted. No heavy boots, just light moccasins, snugly laced up around my feet and calves. Safe and free!
Safe but also free! That conjunction of feelings was to become my goal in my life, governing my choice of friends, my choice of career, my choice of partners. Safe, but free! Warm and cuddly moccasins, but free to run, run away, run from the ties of my baby crib, the ties of my baby high chair. Tied, never free.
“Li Gens Libres”—the free people, yes! That’s who I was! Free! Freedom to go where I wanted, when I wanted. Free to run away, run far away from the drunken craziness, freedom to run in the snow, free to disappear into the woods, free to find my two spirits! Free to explore who I would become.
