Footprints of Hope

Footprints of Hope

The well worn little essay about which authorship is often disputed concerning the two sets of footprints in the sand has been published many times and has perhaps become a kind of coffee mug philosophy the unpacking of which I will spare my patient readers, tempting as it would be, as many eminently more qualified bloggers, writers and teachers have no doubt already done before me. 

The term, footprint in business can mean almost anything from a company’s geographic market presence normally referring to the space taken up by a building, to the carbon footprint or the environmental effect certain activities have on the earth’s natural resources. 

Footprints can signify divine presence, or omnipresence in Eastern philosophies such as Hinduism or Buddhism, a subject about which I do not claim to have much, if any knowledge.

So a footprint can mean, according to Collins Dictionary anything from the indentation or outline of a person or animal to any kind of impact, or presence on either the environment, a person’s consciousness or life itself. 

A favourite poem of my mother’s and one I’ve learnt to return to regularly is Longfellow’s Psalm of Life in which the footprints of great men are a reminder to us that we too, mere mortals are able in whatever measure, to make our lives sublime. The author reminds us that our footprints are capable of possibly saving another’s life: 

“Footprints that perhaps another, 

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, shall take heart again”

                         ~ A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

So it was with the words of this great evocative poem spinning in my head that I leant on the rail of the Muizenberg boardwalk during early morning exercise time, home-made cappuccino in recycled take away cup in hand. Briefly stopping, note, briefly, for fear of being arrested for not exercising. For the benefit of readers in countries outside of South Africa where exercise is permitted during any time of the day, allow me to explain:  “Exercise time” is the brief window from 6am (which is still dark in our part of South Africa) until 9am during which all 60 million South Africans are permitted to exercise. As only certain areas are “Covid Free” such as paved and tarred areas, beach sand being the main conduit of the deadly virus, one is required by law to confine oneself strictly to such areas and not set one foot on the sandy beach or in the sea. Doing so will result in instant arrest by law enforcement officers who will then bundle one into the back of a police van which one can only hope has been thoroughly sanitised and off to the station where one will be charged with whatever is the current flavour-of-the-week-infringement. 

Recycled coffee cup in hand, however noble or environmentally conscious it may sound was simply to give myself the sense of having actually bought a take away coffee as one was able to in a long ago distant, almost forgotten past. Quite aside from the fact that in my new Covid Criminal Befuddled state I was already manufacturing an entire story as to how I came by the cappuccino, instead of feeling peaceful as one would imagine one could in such a perfect setting, I felt confined to the concrete boulevard behind the barrier fence, looking longingly at the surf and the beach sand, with a growing sense of rebellion. What if I just walked the 8 steps down to the beach and put my foot on the sand, only for a moment, like an itinerant toddler? Would I instantly contract the deadly virus? More to the point, did I have the money for the admission of guilt fine which I would not pay in any event because it would prevent my ever being able to travel again as I would have a criminal record, or would the world come to an end?

It was during this coffee mug philosophising that I saw, really saw for the first time, the footprints in the sand below the boardwalk.

Paw prints. Big and small forming random patterns, as made by dogs which had been allowed to run untethered to and fro, sniffing here and there, reading the morning paper of dogs as they do of Fred who had peed against this wall and Baxter who had lifted his leg against the post with the sign that said: “NO DOGS ALLOWED ON THIS BEACH” 

And there they were. Human footprints. It was as if I saw them for the first time. Human footprints of different sizes, some must have been wearing shoes but some were barefoot. People had walked on our beach. These weren’t the fossilised footprints from another time when humanoids walked upright for the first time … on beaches. These were the footprints of pilgrims. Revolutionaries. Guerrillas, not “gorillas” but Freedom Fighters. Those without guns. Those who barefoot defied the idiocy of our time by going down early, before daybreak onto the beach to tread circles where we could see them to give us hope that we may take heart again