To put my feet into the fuzzy decadence of sheepskin slippers is enough to send my mind reeling to the hills of New Zealand, where I could be a farm girl, shepherding my flock, staff in hand, urging them onward to greener pastures,  over the hilly terrain, overlooking the ocean, shearing them come late spring when the wildflowers bloom, and then using their wool to knit winter’s clothing at night, as the sun descends between the high mountains.

My sheepskin slippers are so soft, so rugged. They conjure memories of being on my grandfather’s farm on an early spring morning when the shadows were still long and the grass dewy, when two softly bleating lambs nursed underneath a ewe’s wolly flank, their small lightly woolen hooves toeing the sodden earth. And I, just a child, was struck by this scene of nature, the purity and innocence, the relative disregard these small creatures had for anyone or anything else, as I stood ten meters distant, their mother satisfied in her role, knowing little else despite having cycled through at least eight seasons, her wooly brow partially obscuring her weak vision.

And every time I put on my sheepskin hats, or my sheepskin slippers I remember it all, and it comes back to me in waves.