Barefoot: A Return to Knowing

Day One – The Call

She first heard the voice while sipping her coffee at the edge of the porch, eyes still puffy from a restless night. The wind was still, the light soft and pale, and yet the words came. They were as clear as the water on the still lake she gazed out upon.

Come, walk with me. Leave your shoes at the door.

At first, she blinked it away. The land out here wasn’t exactly barefoot-friendly. This was Southern Alabama – prickly and thorned, full of burrs ad brambles, pine needles and red clay scattered with tiny stones. The occasional snake, always a wasp. If you stood too long in one spot the fire ants would find you.

She knew better. No one walked barefoot out here unless they had something to prove.

Still, the words stuck.

All morning the words followed her. Through the chores and the errands. In the phone call with her mother and folding the laundry. The request hung in the background like a song she couldn’t shake.

That night, she didn’t sleep. Her legs twitched under the sheets. Her thoughts scattered like dry leaves. Something in her was stirring, and it had nothing to do with caffeine.

By morning, she heard it again.

Come walk with me. Leave your shoes at the door.

She didn’t ask where it came from. She already knew who it was. Mother Gaia. She walked with her most days - breathing in the fresh scent of honeysuckle and pine, picking up little prizes: a moth cocoon, an owl feather, smooth stones. Nature’s found objects. Things she can include in her art. Gaia was her co-creator, she had been for years.

Seven days. That’s all I ask. No shoes.

Why? She finally asked, from deep within.

To remember who you are.

That stopped her. Not with fear, but with familiarity. Because there had been a time, once, long ago, when she did remember. She couldn’t explain it, not even now. Just a flicker of a girl running through the fields, her feet bare and fast, the sky opening around her like it was a part of her body.

Seven days to remember who I am?

It didn’t seem like much. And yet, how many people gave up the day before the promise arrived? How many walked away from what they knew was true, simply because the wait was too long, or the cost too high? It was easier to talk yourself out of magic then to walk toward it. She knew this well.

But this call, it felt like a promise. A sacred one.

She stood at the edge of the doorway, staring down at her feet. They were soft and delicate, well protected over the years. The sun was rising above the tree line. The morning dew shimmered in the pasture on the other side of the fence.

If I am going to do this, she thought, I need to start now.

The first sting came before she made it five feet. A small stone lodged itself under her heel, sending a jolt up her leg. She yelped, more out of shock than pain, and kept going. Then came the splinter, thin and sharp, tucked beneath the weathered grain of the porch step.

By the time she reached the gravel path leading to the pasture gate, her arches throbbed. Sharp burrs clung to her skin like forgotten sins. A band of fire ants caught her by the ankle and left their mark. She slapped them away, curing under her breath.

What was I thinking?

But the voice was quiet now. Not gone, just watching. Waiting.

When she reached the edge of the pasture, the brambles rose high, thick with briars and wild blackberry thorns. She could turn back. No one would blame her. She took a breath and stepped forward anyway.

The briars scratched her ankles, thin lines rising across her skin like old stories surfacing. Although she tried to step clear of them, they found her anyway. Some part of her wanted to cry, not from the pain, but from the strange rightness of it. This wasn’t punishment. It was permission.

Permission to feel. To remember the cost of forgetting.

By the time she circled back toward the house, her feet were raw. Her legs stung. Her body ached in ways it hadn’t for years. The earth had bit back with each step. The land didn’t coddle her. It greeted her as it was: wild, sharp, honest. But something insider her felt more alive than it had in a long time.

She washed her feet in a basin of warm water, hands steady, mind quiet. There was no revelation. No miracle. Just the soft knowing.

The ground has always accepted you.

That night, she dreamed of water. A river rushing over stones. She heard laughter. Her very own. Younger. Brighter. Untamed. When she woke, her feet still ached, but her spirit was leaning forward. Toward the next step, toward the voice, toward something she had almost forgotten how to follow.

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Come back next Friday for Day Two of this seven-part flash fiction collection,
where the path is still rough—but the remembering begins.

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