It's Easy

I'm just back from a really swell trip to Yosemite with my friends. SK, Kevin and I got to hang out among granite cliffs and the trees that reach up and up toward their heights. We feared for bears because we ate so well. We walked well-worn paths, and took it easy.

The whole time I was there, I was thinking of how easy life can be. I had been stressed about going on vacation. I had felt a little frazzled after a trip to Michigan. I tarried in Chicago on the way back from Michigan and had a bit too much fun in that fair city. I needed some rest. And, maybe for the first time, I recognized that I needed to rest, and took the time to be nice to myself. I stretched, rubbed my bike-crash wounds with salve, and went to bed early. I felt right and sustained. And when I had whipped myself into unnecessary nerves about going out of town,

I caught myself; I had wonderful family behind me, and a family of friends ahead of me. I breathed, and I had a great time.

I'm happily stuck with this song in my head that I heard on that school bus. I didn't tell you that I went to another Splendor All Around show, and got cozy with strangers, again, in the name of folk music. For the second time, I heard this song (follow link, song starts 1 minute into the track) and it really affected me. The song is about loving yourself enough to not grow skinny in solitude, but to "swell in your loneliness; love yourself enough to rest."

Jetlagged Wanderings

Water gathers frozen on the sidewalk; but I'm warm.
Flowers flatter fifty thousand faces that ignore
the whispered secret
longings leaking from each bud
they drip with honey sweetness,
and colors burst from dirt and sun
and burly men show meekness,
and all the world will walk on by
and rushing fail to breathe
the blissful fleeting moment: . This . Be .