Footprints

Footprints, like DNA, or handwriting, are more than simply a map of where you've been, or the direction you're heading out. For many years, my right footprint was skewed, with edges as obscure as the details of those dreams that float through consciousness just before sleep fades into light. A January surgery—performed by a high-dollar specialist— put me in a freakish two-ton boot for so many weeks, my hip went out. But my footprints are so un-notched you could track me in the snow, and never know who you followed.