{"id":3694,"date":"2023-02-14T20:38:05","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T02:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sparetherock.com\/wordpress\/?p=3694"},"modified":"2023-02-14T21:00:36","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T03:00:36","slug":"dont-worry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparetherock.com\/wordpress\/ramblings\/dont-worry\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t worry."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A year ago at this time, I was in Duluth, Minnesota, reeling from the unexpected death of our friend Jon Western<\/a>. I was raised United Methodist, and to the extent I\u2019m anything, I guess I\u2019m that, but I think I was doing whatever my equivalent of sitting shiva is. I rented a little place on Park Point<\/a> and spent a good bit of time looking at the lake and sitting with my grief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m back here again after a year of deaths, some I guess expected and a lot not. There was Jon, but there was also Morgan<\/a>, (another) Jon, Jeffrey, Mark, Alan, Art, Nancy. Our friend Erik died in 2020 but his celebration of life was in 2022 due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m 51, and I know that some of this is just what happens. But half of those are my contemporaries and it seems too soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway. Like I said, I\u2019m back here and I\u2019m trying to process. For me, a lot of processing stuff is music, and a lot of it is walking. So this morning I went for a walk from my place on one of Duluth\u2019s many wonderful walking paths, and I wanted something familiar. So I put on Frank Turner\u2019s album from a few years ago, Be More Kind<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ella and I saw Frank open for The Hold Steady in December 2017 (here they are together<\/a>, there are swears), so we got to hear one or two of the songs from that album early\u2014I mostly remember him doing \u201cMake America Great Again<\/a>\u201d (which isn\u2019t what you might think it is).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Worry\u201d had honestly never made much of an impression on me other than as a pleasant album opener, one I\u2019ve heard dozens (hundreds?) of times. But this time, walking with Lake Superior perhaps 1,000 feet to my left, avoiding slipping on the ice, it resonated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n