ESSAY|WRITING|CREATIVE WRITING

The Ground Beneath My Feet

Barefoot in the Sierra Nevada

Photo by author

I took my walking boots off. I removed my bamboo socks. And I rested my bare feet on the ground.

The hardness and sharpness of rocks and stones made me doubt my decision for a second. The prickliness of twigs and small branches didn’t help either. And yet, a sense of calm took over me as I ventured forth, my walking boots slung around my neck, bouncing slightly off my shoulders, but, amazingly, not feeling uncomfortable.

It had been a long time since I’d walked barefoot. London’s animal-faeces-strewn parks and green spaces had put paid to that fancy notion. Occasionally, when sandal-clad, and picnicking with friends, I allowed my toes to experience the soft touch of recently-mowed grass.

But I had never dared to walk barefoot in London. Certainly not the distance I’d just covered in the Sierra Nevada’s “Sendero de Flor del Almendro” (Almond Flower Path). Only three quarters of a mile out of almost twenty, but enough to satisfy the craving of feeling the soil on the soles of my feet.

Like Selima Hill in her poem Among the Thyme and Daisies, I also “climbed in bare feet to the barrow”. No burial mound for me to visit, though. Instead, I witnessed the fast-vanishing sights of…