Learning to Relax

When I was a small boy living in the city of New Orleans, a tropical hurricane practically wrecked the city, but my home was untouched. After the storm, my father and I were walking in Audubon Park, surrounded by the casualties of the gale. Giant live oak trees lay on all sides, uprooted after centuries of leafy grandeur. We came to a small grove of willow trees and these relatively tender saplings were not uprooted, were not even damaged, but swayed gently in the breeze that was the aftermath of the storm. My father said to me: "They lived, for they were able to bend with the power of the wind. The oaks could not do this and they died."