Many thanks to NuShoe for giving me my favorite boots back.  For those who need their amazing services, I've placed a link for them on my "links" page.

After 3 years, two of which were spent walking nearly 24 hours a day on sharp limestone, it was obvious that my boots were dead.

The death of a favorite pair of shoes is tragic for all of us but this was an unusual case.  These boots were my whole persona.  They were ME.  They were the perfect embodiment of my medieval self...the archer, the craftsman, the woodsy lassie who played with her dogs and sheep, and the 21st century snob. Snob?  Yep.  Despite the fact that these wonderful fawn colored foot wrappers were seemingly hand stitched and perfectly floppy around my ankles, these were the only pair of Timberlands® I had ever owned.  Now here I have to admit that it was the beautiful feel and unusual style of these boots that first stole my heart but the fact that a tiny little tree logo was branded on the heel made wearing them such a sinful pleasure.  It was an indulgence I never allowed myself and after going back and forth to the store 4 times over two weeks and a 75% price reduction, they were mine!!  But now they were dead, and I was completely at a loss about my future without my boots.

With my chin up, I pondered buying a pair of ghillies but how silly would that look standing in the middle of a sheep pen?  I scoured thrift stores, lit candles and had daily tea devotionals with Saint Anthony trying to find the exact shoe, or at least a shoe that would make me feel close to complete as I knew that my persona would never be the same.  In the meantime, my dead boots lay on the floor, taunting me with their ragged holes where a sole once was and the tattered, rolled, and stained leather at least a full inch higher than where the bottom edge had been when I first brought them home.  I would never be able to repair them, but I could never, ever dispose of them because to do so would be akin to removing my own feet and throwing them out right along with them.  Perhaps I could enshrine them?  Perhaps I could save them as an artifact of the first years of the castle I was building!  Surely there would someday be a museum dedicated to this enormous project that had been the death of my cherished friends, the reason for all those danged Arkansas limestone paths that had caused this crisis in the first place.  No, they could never be disposed of.  Instead, they traveled back to Mississippi and lay on the floor beside the computer for over a year, a bittersweet reminder that my life at the castle was over, and that my boots were only a part of my past and not my future.

Perhaps it was the fact that Saint Anthony missed our daily chats, or maybe the stars aligned for a short while which prompted me to make one more attempt, but whatever it was that happened to allow the resurrection of my boots, I am a complete medievalist once again.  After numerous attempts at shoe repair shops, phone calls to Timberland and countless searches on e-bay, I had given up on ever wearing them again but something that day urged me to look one more time.  A quick online search of “Timberland repair” yielded a site in California that claimed to work miracles on dead boots...and I truly needed a miracle!  After the first tentative phone call, there was hope.  “Send us some pictures and I’ll talk to the shop manager,” she said.. “This is encouraging” I thought, “but don’t put much faith in this.  Afterall, she didn’t say they could fix them.  Only that they would LOOK at them.”  After a few exchanges by phone and e-mail, it was agreed that they could at least try to give them back to me.  So, with bridled enthusiasm, I mailed my friends to California in the envelope they provided.  I waited and I wondered, until they would be returned to me.  How would they look? Would they still be my perfect shoe?  Would they still be the ultimate blending of the 13th century look with a 21st century composition sole?   

In some of my bardic performances, I tell the folktale “Something from Nothing” about a favorite jacket that gets re-purposed into a vest, a tie, a handkerchief and finally a button. When the button is lost, it surely becomes impossible to make “something from nothing” but the resourceful young laddie in the story finds what no one else was able to.  As with my boots, you can indeed make something from nothing.  Not only can you make a medievalist extremely happy and whole again, but there is “just enough material here to make...a wonderful story.”

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As I embark on my newest medieval adventure, the one that will be sending me around the south in the same manner as a pilgrim during the crusades, I can't help but be reminded of how lucky I am.  I grew up as a child who dreamed of being a fairy tale princess and, for a too brief period in my life, I was as close to that life as anyone can ever get without the last name of Windsor or Ranier.  I lived and worked at a castle being built right here in the US called the Ozark Medieval Fortress.  Although I was not exactly a princess...the feudal system insured that I was merely an upper class peasant...I was allowed to learn and experience the life of a laborer in the 13th century.  I also was able to share my experiences through a few blog entries posted on the Fortress web page.  One of my favorites is shared here for you.  I hope you enjoy it!

Living the life of a medieval citizen is something we do everyday at the Ozark Medieval Fortress.  For most of us it has become almost a way of life as we pick up a bucket to carry water to water plants or mix mortar, or walk several times up and down the hill so we can communicate with the blacksmith or carpenter.  In the 21st century we would probably groan at the idea that we couldn’t turn on the sprinkler, or FAX the carpenter with a sketch of the item we needed him to make. But here in the 13th century, its an easy transition.  We are surrounded by a castle, and sheep, and campfires.  The surroundings make us feel like we are there, in France, in 1226.  Perhaps it is so easy for us because we know that at the end of the day we will be driving home in cars, into our environmentally controlled homes filled with wifi and Wii.  But something happened the other day that made me realize there is so much more happening here than just role playing. We are truly experiencing.

The dilemma came as I was attending to our newest addition, a beautiful ram named Garçon.  While talking to a large group of visitors, the donkeys and the horse came bounding up the trail much to the displeasure of  Garçon. Frightened, he scurried around the pen a few times, found the lowest spot in the fence and quickly jumped over.  Luckily, the horse came back around and Garçon decided it was safer on the inside and jumped back over.  All was well...and it was all played out in front of our visitors.  Later that day, I was adding string to the top of the fence to add height to it and hoping it would prevent my wonderful new ram from escaping.  It was in the last hours of the day, the sun was setting and the fence had to be secure before I could leave.  Once again the donkey comes trotting up the trail and stops in my garden to munch on the chives and to leave hoof prints all over the newly planted seeds! There I was, faced with a real medieval scenario.  I was alone...and had to decide if I should save the garden from the donkey or the ram from jumping the fence. It was truly 1226.  I had to make a decision that would have been an everyday occurrence, but that could easily affect how well I survived the winter.  Did I have more seeds to plant after the donkey destroyed the beds or should I stay and finish the fence so the ram wouldn’t be frightened and escape again?  Without the ram, would I have lambs in the spring to raise, shear and feed on? As if by magic the last of our visitors was walking up from the castle site.  I hollered to him to please “shoo that donkey out of my garden!”. Without blinking an eye, the man waved his hands,  shooed the donkey and all was right again in the Middle Ages.  He continued up the trail, and I continued to mend the fence.  We are definitely not just role playing here. We...our workers, our volunteers and even our visitors...are taking part in a rare and unique experience.  Simply by being here, each of us is experiencing the magic of time travel.