Someday...

It is my inability to outrun my footprints that shall be my undoing.  Never have I been able to get out of my own way.  The odd thing of course is that I never see myself coming.  I’m forever surprised that I have not only left there but have gotten myself here.

Other oddities are those things I tend to carry with me.  Pocket change - whose value has fallen far below its own weight, lint covered mints and a southern comb. (Not quite enough teeth).

This observation is not just a random or flickering thought but an in-depth acknowledgement resulting form a study of footprints past.  Tracking backwards towards my youth I find the imprint of dress shoes, running shoes, tennis shoes, sneakers, sandals, bare feet, and on two separate occasions – flippers.  Missing are the indentations left from stilts and Pogo sticks.  Either insufficient confidence or basic self-preservation caused their avoidance.

I will admit to having gone several years without looking back.  If I don’t see them – they’re not there.

Today, however, I am followed by the prints of an old man.  They seem slow and deliberate, though never shuffling.  

It’s strange, but now I feel a familiar comfort in them.  I find myself glancing back just to make sure they’re still with me.

 

I once heard of an Olympic contestant from Kenya who ran so fast he actually outran his own prints.  Of course - by the time the judges got there to see such a miracle the prints had caught up with him.