First Time in Yosemite

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.

-John Muir
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Just spent some much needed time away in a truly stunningly beautiful place only six hours drive from home and to which I had actually never been to before: Yosemite. It was magnificent, and perfectly timed: we were “off-season”, away from the crowds, surrounded by incredible views of waterfalls formed by snow melting in crevasses thousands of feet above us. The only hard part was being surrounded by so many happy families, and thinking how much I would have liked James to see it all one day. I picked up a copy of Denise Levertov’s Selected Poems since discovering Talking To Grief was in it, and she is fast becoming one of my favorite poets. We didn’t actually get a chance to sit around and read in Yosemite, though we happened on plenty of people doing it at the beautiful historic Ahwanee hotel in their great lounge beside a roaring fire one rainy afternoon. Well, maybe next time.