As I walked to my mom’s house next door, I looked at the silhouettes of birds in the trees with the sun setting behind them. The road was still warm beneath my bare feet, and my leg muscles were tired from yard work. Mourning doves sang from the telephone line until I was just beneath them, and then they flew away in a rush of energy.
“Sabra, put your shoes on!” my neighbor shouted from her doorway.
This is our joke. Every season, she remarks on my tendency to be barefoot as long as possible. In March, she calls out, “It must be spring! You don’t have shoes on!” And then, when the snow falls, she yells, “Oh no, look at those boots! We must be in for a long…
