Live simply

I used to have a bumper sticker on my car that said, “Live simply, that others may simply live.”

I was thinking about taking a road trip this weekend, because I have three days off instead of the usual two, but the more I thought about it, the less appealing it sounded. Tucumcari is a little out of range for a three-day weekend, and there’s nowhere else I really want to go.

I need to work on my novel, finish the coupon books I’m making my niece and nephews for Christmas, go for a couple of training runs, and repaint the hood of my car, which is woefully faded … and if I finish all that, I think I’d like to spend some time sitting around in my Birkenstocks with my guitar on my lap, playing Dylan and Cohen and Guthrie and singing quietly to myself.

While I was thinking about that, I saw this article one of my colleagues wrote, and the picture made me sad.

I bet I could fill at least one of those bare shelves for the price of two nights in a motel and a couple of tanks of gas to go somewhere I don’t particularly want to be at the moment. And really, I think I’d just like to be off by myself somewhere under the sky, singing folk songs and daydreaming. I’m sure I can find a big lichen-covered rock at Giant City or Trail of Tears or Little Grand Canyon that would be suitable for that sort of thing.

Emily