Rain Boots

When we lived in Indiana, I didn’t do much walking. I was teaching in a village and living in the country. I drove everywhere; we even drove to the trail where we ran. Now, a city girl again, I need rain boots. Last spring, I got myself some fine ones from L. L. Bean: inexpensive rubber wellies in a multi-colored stripe--the kind of fun, happy boots that I had as a child and that I was seeing on grown women all over the city. The rain left before I got to wear them but they sit proudly on the floor of my closet/study and I admire them daily.

Today, it rained and rained and rained. It rained as it does here—more than Boston, harder than Seattle. It rains so that you want to lay in lumber to build an ark. I didn’t wear the wellies, though; I wore my spiffy new black Timberlands. It’s still early enough in the fall that being all in black feels special and cool. Still, the wellies call me. Tonight, on WNYC, Margaret Juntwait said her feet became so sopping on the way to work, she stopped in a shoe store and bought a pair of those brightly colored Wellingtons that everyone seems to be wearing. So hip, am I, I thought! I hopped online and found a similarly exuberantly striped pair at Land’s End (no big spender, I) for the beloved toddler.

Just ten minutes ago, my husband poked his head in my closet, “You know, those boots,” pointing down at my multi-stripe wellies, “are gone this year. None of the NYU students were wearing them today.”

Sigh. Middle age.