Makes Me Feel Fine
I was being an especially annoying elastic demand consumer at Wal-Mart in the music section a few days ago. I was trying to remember the Seals and Crofts song that was going to require me to buy a greatest hits CD. Walking home from a tofu burrito lunch today, it struck me all at once.
—
See the curtains hanging in the window
In the evening on a Friday night
A little light a-shining through the window
Lets me know everythings alright
Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
See the paper lying on the sidewalk
A little music from the house next door
So I walk on up to the door step
Through the screen and across the floor
Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
Sweet days of summer, the jasmine’s in bloom
July is dressed up and playing her tune
When I come home from a hard days work
And you’re waiting there, not a care in the world
See the smile a-waiting in the kitchen
Food cooking and the plates for two
Feel the arms that reach out to hold me
In the evening when the day is through
Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
—
I think every year so far, when it gets to this point where school is the intersection of a fait d’accompli and a pressure cooker, I unwittingly select a song to, in a way, serve as a motivating theme. I am not ashamed to say that “She’s Every Woman” by Garth Brooks was the first one I chose my freshman year while doing literally hundreds of thermodynamics problems.
Now, I’m sitting in business school as a first-year graduate student. Would I rather be back there? No, absolutely not. But, there’s a charm in having continuity, not in music, but in circumstance.
In two more years I will look at this time in Spring like I view the concept of a “staff workday” or “early dismissal” now. It will be a sideshow to the flow of my life.
Music seems to wrap it all together, no matter what.