Southern Comfort

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.----Mark Twain. People talk about how to feel comfortable in your own skin. Architects and dress-designers alike discuss combining comfort with function and appearance. The search for comfortable shoes is longer than the one for the meaning of life. When you look for a couch,chances are you are looking for a comfortable couch. The chair in your office needs to be comfortable. After work,you might want to slip into something more comfortable. I have heard that a comfortable saddle is important although I would argue that horseriding knowledge would make me more at ease. Comfortable jeans are great and comfortable genes are even greater. Becoming comfortable with yourself sounds like it would require yoga and a certain amount of flexibility but I could be mistaken. A comfortable silence describes an interruption in a conversation that does not result in anxiety or concern over what the other person is thinking. During that lapse in chatter,comfort food could be served although it clearly would not be needed. You want some order in your life and that can be achieved through a comfortable routine.  If Mary and Joseph had stopped at a Comfort Inn, there would have been a room and it would have been...wait for it...comfortable. I just returned from a beach trip where I spent alot of time holding my adorable three-year-old great-nephew in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We laughed and rode waves and swallowed salt water. We gazed up at the bright blue sky every time the planes from Tyndall Air Force Base flew over us. We shared overly-dramatic exaggerated reactions to approaching waves. We laughed hysterically and ingested more of the Gulf before catching our collective breath and repeating the cycle. We looked for fish and reacted to minnows as if they were whales. We were out there so long, we could have found Nemo. We were out there so long, I thought I saw Nemo. The crashing waves slowed for a bit and the laughter was replaced with us holding each other and rolling gently with the calmer waves. We were in sync with the water. The motion was effortless. Zeke smiled and looked directly into my eyes and softly said: This is comfy.  And I agreed but apparently not convincingly. Then he said: I'm comfy. Are you comfy? When I assured him that I was, he grinned and just held on tighter. And so did I.