My mom, embodying the absolute Texas woman, circa 1970s.

Nancy Sinatra’s 80th Birthday was on Monday. In her honor, here’s a tale about boots that were made for walking, the mother-daughter relationship I had with my Texas-through-and-through mom as a teenager, and a moment we shared with a Tejano soul sister.

These Boots Are Made For Walkin'...$100 Bills And A Pair Of Cowboy Boots: A Texas Woman Mother-Daughter Story

15 years old. 2006. My mom and I were going through the uncomfortable struggles of a 15-year-old reaching for freedom (via a learner's permit), and a mom coming into this new paradigm of loosening the reigns for this almost-adult-still-baby human she brought into the world. But the one thing we could get along with? Cowboy boots, and being radically generous to strangers.

Generosity was a huge thing in this culture we were pursuing. The more you gave, then the more capacity you have to receive. Stagnant stuck energy of hoarding and holding onto things -- though you'd think this is the way to conserve provisions, that signals a slow or stop in the flow of abundance. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, if things are strapped, or you're in need, finding ways you can give and express generosity is the secret weapon here. (Interestingly, I have found this truth across all the forms of spirituality I've resonated with, which is pretty cool.)

So one of our favorite activities? Leaving servers big-ass tips. Extravagant tips. We'd pray for our servers at restaurants, try to get a "prophetic word" for them (AKA an encouraging, intuitive message to build them up), I'd write out a love letter on a napkin, and we'd leave the server a one-hundred-dollar bill and leave quickly. It was kinda our thing.

My mom and I, circa 2006. Not pictured: I’m sitting on my Djembe drum, and mom’s intermittently pretending I am a drum to drum on, in between pictures. #awkwardfamilyphotos One of my favorites.

The One Thing We Could Actually Agree Upon In Our Strained Mother-Teenaged Daughter Relationship

It seemed so preposterous, and looking back now-- I'm even more blown away. My mom makes a simple hourly wage working as a mastectomy fitter and sees women who are coming out of these traumatic journeys with breast cancer. My dad works on cars for a living. We weren't rolling in the dough. But it was our little secret hobby we loved to do. The one thing we could actually agree on was being radically generous to strangers. We'd drive up to Marble Falls, Texas, go to Bluebonnet Cafe, have a slice of pie, and then leave a one-hundred-dollar bill on an $8 tab, leave a love letter on a napkin, and split.

The Signature Texas Woman Blend: Rattlesnake-Venom Man-Hater Meets Emerging Woman Meets Prayer Warrior.

My parents in front of Barton Springs in Austin, 1973.

My mom is as Texas as they come, and as Austin, Texas, as they come at that. She lives on a diet of queso, chips, guacamole, popcorn, and homegrown chile pequines. She's got her Midland-Odessa, Texas accent. She loves her cowboy boots. We steal each other's shoes (it's a blessing and a curse.) Her hair (post her "ugly-Betty" phase as she calls it) has been some hue of magenta-fuchsia-violet for the last decade. She wears giant blue overstated glasses that (my guess) make her feel as secretly ubiquitous and eccentric as the movies she finds in proverbial couch cushion cracks of Netflix.

She out-orders me at Tex-Mex restaurants every time. She loves Mexican Martinis from Trudy's. She's obsessed with basketball. She gets cravings for buttermilk pancakes from Kerbey Lane sometimes. She's a jogger. She ran the Capitol 10,000 race for the first few decades of my life. She was a vegetarian for some twenty-something years (and never gave anyone an actual answer why.)

She has that signature Texas blend of rattlesnake-venom man-hater meets emerging woman meets prayer warrior. "You just have to pray about it, Shelby," is her signature line.

Mom and I, Fall 2019 during a trip to Austin, enjoying Trudy’s delicious @$$ Mexican Martinis during a Sunday brunch.

"Your boots!!! I love your cowboy boots!!! Wow!!!" ...We'd found our fellow soul-sister.

For my driving lesson for the day, I drove us to our local Goodwill to drop off a bag of clothes. My mom, in all her glory with the most badass pair of gray cowboy boots, hops out to hand off the bags to this radiant 50-something Tejano Abuela.

"Your boots!!! I love your cowboy boots!!! Wow!!!" ...We'd found our fellow soul-sister.

"She loves my cowboy boots!!" Mom said, dropping back into the navy '89 Mustang GT 5.0.

"Give them to her!!" fell out of my mouth. We both had a moment of slight shock at these words that just rolling on the center console between us.

"You think so?" ...This was, after all, one of our most coveted finds of all the cowboy boots we'd found at various resale stores we'd frequented. Giving this pair up would severely impact both of our wardrobe styling options. We'd just had that pair re-soled, and they were in fantastic condition.

"Yeah! Let's do it! Give her the boots!"

Broken English, Broken Spanish, And Charades

I pulled a U-ey in the parking lot, testing the boundaries of my shifting and coordination skills. We went back through the drop, and my mom jumped out. I watched through the tinted rear window. Between broken English, broken Spanish, and charades, I watched my mom wobble and take off one boot, the woman take off one of her work shoes, step into my mom's boot, and take those first critical romps. My mom's eyebrows raised. The Abuela's eyes became saucers. Her expression dropped, immediately looking over her shoulder, explaining how she wasn't supposed to take anything that came through while she was on her Goodwill shift. My mom took both boots, walked around the back of the building, squatted down by the dumpster. She returned empty-handed, gave that woman a huge hug, a kiss on the cheek, and then dropped back in the mustang.

The three of us all beamed and waved at each other as we parted ways, my mom, sitting in the passenger's seat, barefoot.