Put on Your Blue Suede Shoes

Don't we all need feel good days? You know the days I'm talking about... right? Although it was definitely too chilly outside and to chaotic a schedule to truly be a feel good day - today really felt like one. Okay, for those of you who are lost - let me explain.

Feel Good Day - n., A day such that one's heart and emotional existence can coordirnate with physical peace and harmony.

Right... so let's try that again...

Feel Good Day - A day where the sun shines early and the birds are chirping. You get enough sleep to wake up during the sunrise and not feel tired. The sunrise is then observed while walking through dewey grass, barefoot, and listening to everything that is peaceful and natural. A strong rhythm beats in your veins and you feel on top of the world... at least that's what it is for me. There is no more (important) internal conflict and, quite frankly, no one else's opinion really matters.

Today was definitely a Feel Good Day - far from perfect, and far from what the ideal Feel Good Day should be but somehow I could care less about everything going around me. For today, it was just me and God and the song of my soul - which is ironically similiar to Walking in Memphis.

I, like many others, cannot wait for summer. There is something about summer that I have always claimed to detest but really do quite adore. Summer is a season of brutal honesty. In spring, there exists the facade of innocence and rebirth. After summer, autumn comes with it's "aging" wisdom and calm serenity that hint toward the end. And then winter is filled with death and deception. It waits -giving false hope that maybe autumn won't have to end and then fades slowly with small, teasing glimpses of spring.

But summer, summer is the exposure - the honesty - that is lacking for me. In summer, I don't have to smile anymore. I don't have to stress to make other's happy with my grades and my attitudes. In summer, I don't have to waste my days with mindless drone work that may at some point contribute to a higher paying job but definitely does not contribute to a satisfied soul.

Summer brings heat and fire and irritation but it is when you get to see the true colors. It is where you see dedication on the blacktop "marching field" ten hours a day; where you see runners not so gracefully pushing themselves over the hills until they collapse from exhaustion. It is also a place to relax and just be yourself - the pretensions and the facades of high school social classes stop.

The rolling Kentucky hills, covered in soft, meshy grass are made into a beautiful canvas full of paths to be ventured. And on the days romaning these hills, it's where the power of today's materialistic, man-made, man-controlled, man-destroyed society ceases it's grip on me. Out there it is only me and God. Out there... out there I can be me without being judged or ranked.

Any maybe I am disillusioned with life - maybe is summer is just another scientific cycle which just happens to fit in perfectly with a great metaphor. But I don't think so... God is too deliberate to have let something that intricate happen by chance. The most important thing is that we find and appreciate our "feel good" days for what they are... a chance to be free. A chance to sing to your heart's content, dance until your knees give way, talk until your own voice makes you sick, and listen until you start to think that you have possibly lost your own voice.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into the trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." - John Muir (American naturalist and writer)