The End of Winter

I shall be a little sad to see the end of winter and the many and wonderful ways women wear tights and boots.

What is it I admire, besides the given fact that they are women?

There is the leather - tall, short, zippered, laced, smooth, sueded, tanned, in every color imaginable.

And I am grateful for the animal, who sacrificed his or her life for our food and our comfort and our style.

I am not being idle here. This is a matter of life and death.

My own death will come and I will be meat for the microbes, which will be meat for the plants, which will be meat for the animal, which will become beef and boots.

Of course we should treat the elements of the chain of life with respect, which we are hardly doing.

And when a life is cut short of its natural course we should honor the sacrifice, as we say we do when we send off young men and women in their army boots to die for freedom.

So let us not take life and death too lightly. Or too heavily.

We are here for a short time and we should savor and admire the fruits of evolution and of labor which is not our own.

If we are going to eat and wear creatures less smart and swift than we are, the least we should do is make ourselves fit for their sacrifice, not for mere vanity’s sake, but for the sharing of our admiration of the beauty and elegance of living beings, including, but by no means limited to ourselves - and to the restoration of our own souls.

It will be spring soon, then summer and fall. And then women will being wearing tights and boots again. Some of us will still be here to see it. Not all.

Respect life. There is an opportunity to honor those who came before us in every bite and every step.