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."