Boots

I think Seattle is the most beautiful city in the world.  Yes I am prone to exaggeration, but my exaggerations are mostly prone towards truth and absolutely always make my stories better, so shut it.  

I think I live my life and live in my city like I wear my boots - I find good ones and then wear the heck out of them.  

There is a story about me and boots that a few of my friends love to bring up.  A couple years ago I bought a pair of boots that soon after their adoption made their way DEEP into my heart.  I adored them.   I slept and bathed and made love in them.  I loved them so much that I decided to do something uncannily grown-up: I decided to buy a second pair of these boots to ensure I would never, ever have to say good-bye.  

I found an exact pair on e-bay, and voila, they appeared on my front porch like a holy gift of leather and canvas from the magical mailman fairy (wait, porch? I most certainly do not have a front porch - that part of the story was SO untrue).  But strangely enough I have never, ever worn this new pair of boots.  The original pair has now been worn almost beyond recognition or decency.  The soles are gone, the leather is shredded and stained and in essence they now border on "homeless" rather than "couture" (a border I often tread).  But despite their obvious near extinction I cannot find it in my heart to cheat on them with the new pair.  The "new" pair sits in my closet, like the show-off mechanical toys (bastards) in Velveteen Rabbit AFTER the boy realizes how amazing the Velveteen Rabbit is, their firm leather and solid soles having no sway over my mind or heart.  I'm not even tempted.  

I do this with everything - when I find something I like I stick with it, and I don't stick with it because I'd rather not look for something else.  I am not a lazy ass.  I stick with it because I love whatever "it" is more and more.  The longer my boots are on my feet the more perfect they feel and the more perfect they fit.  

Not that I don't love new things or new people or new adventures, but I will probably listen to the same song 300 times on my ipod, send postcards to the same 5 people I did the last time and wear 4 year old shoes on my feet while I take those adventures.  

But enough about me, let's get back to me.  I have lived here in Seattle for over six years now and I still feel the thrill I felt when I moved here - and, BONUS, the thrill is now laced with comfort.  

Last night I walked the few blocks from my condo to Kerry Park where there is a fantastic overlook of the city and the water and in the daytime the mountains.  My favorite thing about this overlook (besides the literally constant hoards of people trying to get the perfect postcard picture of their trip to Seattle... I sometimes smile and bless them, but mostly I scowl and curse like a bitter, old woman) is watching the ferries coming into the port and then going back out.  When it is very dark (so, any time after 3pm) there is no distinction between the mass of water and the mass of sky - the line separating them is impossible to see.  The result is a single mass of darkness in every direction, so when the ferries leave the port they seem to float away into the sky.  It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen to watch those ferries float away.   

Last night while I watched the magic it was cold as balls.  It was so cold that I actually sent up a prayer of gratitude into the darkness for my lack of balls.  I only lasted about an hour, but it was a long hour.  

I force (with a whip and a threat of abandonment) my mind to rest on a single thing when I take my frigid, late-night walks and sits, and last night the one thing was my youngest brother.  My mind didn't need much whipping or threatening.  He's an easy person to think about.  I thought about how much I love him.  I thought about how I was thirteen when he was born and how I held him and rocked him and kissed him so much that my lips itched and got lonely after five minutes of alone time.  He is the youngest of five and I thought about how crazy hard that must be.  I thought about how I will never know what life is like from his perspective.  Mostly I thought about how the older he gets the more I love him, which I never thought possible when my heart was bursting with love when he was a baby.  I love my brother like I wear my boots: he only gets more perfect.  He grows and he changes and gets taller and gets a deep voice from the deep-voice fairy, and with every single change I find myself smiling with delight: he's perfect.  

My marriage of six years ends and everyone wants to know "why."  It is a valid question - a pragmatic curiosity.  If a plane crashes the reason for the crash would be investigated - I get it.  But when I start to try to answer this question my mind starts spinning.  Imagine someone asking you, "So how did you come to be who you are today?"  Certainly the answer is more complicated than a thousand pages of typing and a thousand years of discussion.  There's a hundred thousand moments that would have to be discussed and dissected and retold.  And after all that work the truth of how you came to be would still be elusive.  I know this because I am a very wise old sage.  And because I believe truth is always elusive.  

But here's what cold walks teach me: truth is also simple.  Life is a bitch of complicated bullshit, but it's also very, very simple.  It's like someone leaning over after making ridiculously fantastic love to you, kissing you and then asking you how you feel. "Good." you might say with a smile.  ("Hot-diggity-dog!" you might also yell as you jump on the bed, if you are an idiot and a terrible post-love-maker.)  This simple answer, "good", is TRUE, even though there are a thousand emotions and rages and gratitudes surging just beneath the surface.    

As I walked home after thinking about my brother from thousands of miles away in the cold, and as my mind inevitably started to spin around my own life and ask me big, huge questions in an intimidating, spittle-throwing voice, I smiled: it's so simple.  

It really is simple.  After years of the same view and the same neighborhood, I still like watching the ferries float away.  It is a thrill that is now laced with comfort.  I love and I live my life like I wear my boots.  And some people don't.  

Comments

[Collin]

I love you Charis. :) (My spell checker says I spelled your name wrong, but I disagree) I was walking by the front door and I wished you would come bursting through it with your arms open and I could hug you and kiss you and slap your butt.

[Charis Brice]

I love you too!!!
and the front door thing: ME TOO!
Hahahahahaa.

I would hug and kiss you and then slap you because you slapped my butt.

[mom]

This was absolutely profound and beautiful. I feel like I always do when I read something you write. You put words to what I feel inside but am inadequate to express, even to myself. I love that you are so faithful to get lots of soul-food. I intend to follow your example.

[Meghan]

You are simply beautiful. You are many other things, but it is also true that you are simply beautiful. Not a simple beauty, but simply beautiful.

[Allison Reho]

i know we don't really know each other. but i just happened to be browsing over your facebook and came across to a link to this. and i read this blog ( and a few others), and might i say that after reading it i felt good? i love your writing and the way you write. i hope you don't find me creepy when i read more in the future. of course you don't have to know.

[Charis]

Allison - it is an honor to have you read, and the farthest thing from creepy. Thanks for your kind words! Do you have a blog?

[Erin]

The Longbrake posted your blog on his blog, so I clicked the link... and you process life with words in a way that makes me think I'll be coming back here again. Thanks. Seattle is somewhere I would like to live some day.