Saturday Music: I’ve Got That Feeling

I finally got around to watching The Beatles: Get Back Documentary the other day. I enjoyed watching them craft their music. Of course I have opinions about it all but right now I just want to use a song they put together during the filming of it to describe where I am in life at the moment. There is plenty of time to critique what ended up being the last time the group would perform live together.

“I got a feeling, a feeling deep inside, oh yeah!” The opening line to The Beatles classic song I’ve Got a Feeling from their album Let It Be. They put it together during the “Get Back Sessions.” You do not have to be a fan of The Beatles to have a feeling deep inside that is driven by music. We all do in our own way, in our own time.

“Everybody had a hard year” John Lennon sings in the song. What an understatement. Personally, I dealt with the death of my parents within weeks of each other, watched my job evaporate due to circumstances out of my control, found my current job well over five hundred miles away from my West Virginia mountaintop, purchased a new house in this impossible market, plus sold my own-all during a pandemic. Yeah, it was a hard year alright.

“I’ve got a feeling, that keeps me on my toes, oh yeah” says Paul McCartney. That is kind of how I felt through it all. I had to stay focused, keep on my toes in order to pull it all off. Who did I look to everyday to help me through all that you might ask? Well of course it was my family and friends. They were all there to pick me up and help carry me through it all and I love them all for it.

I have written before about how important music is to me and I sure leaned on it to get me through it all. I turned to my library daily. Led Zeppelin everyday, The Stones, Pink Floyd, Alice In Chains…some days it was Miles Davis and Coltrane or the smooth Marvin Gaye. Others it was some foot stomping with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Chris Stapleton or Waylon Jennings. Having a library of over forty-eight thousand songs allows me to escape in many ways depending on how I am feeling at the moment.

“Everybody pulled their socks up, everybody put their foot down.” That’s damn right. Each day I got up and got moving. The plan I put together required that, no matter how down I was, no matter how discouraged I felt, there was no time to waste feeling bad or worrying about things I could not control.

As summer was coming to an end last year things began to fall into place. “Everybody saw the sunshine, oh yeah, oh yeah”. Having landed my job transfer after a few trips back and forth to South Carolina, it was time to find our new home. We were excited to get back to the south. We just did not realize how difficult that would be. We toured homes in South Carolina via FaceTime from the confines of our home in West Virginia. With a lot of research, persistence, faith and a little luck we found our new digs in the south. “Oh yeah, oh yeah, oooh yeah!”

 It has been about five months since the move. I have been challenged in many ways. Some of them I expected, some not. We are settled now in our new home and life and I cannot remember a time in my life where I felt so happy. Content? A friend of mine asked me that the other day and I answered no. “All these years, I’ve been wandering around.” I still have to check myself some days now to realize where I am and what it took to get here. Contentment is within my grasp, that I know but not just yet.

Through my life I have spent it helping others, being the go-to guy, the handyman, jack of all trades, master of none someone once told me. Things are different now. It is just me and the wife. After years of being there for everyone it is time now for us to be there for each other and relax. “Everybody let their hair down” says John and that is where we are right now.

“I’ve got a feeling, a feeling I can’t hide!” Living through my first southern winter since the early 90’s puts a smile on my face. Of course, I know Hell’s Kitchen is coming in a few months but that is alright. It is one thing to be hot in West Virginia during the summer, it is an entirely different heat here in South Carolina. The difference? The Atlantic Ocean is just an hour away. “Oh yeah!”

 Ordinary Times have been good to me. A few years ago, a conversation about a Grateful Dead concert turned into a suggestion that I write about it, which I truly enjoyed doing. That led to other pieces that were rolling around in my brain looking for a way out. The ones that were about music or at least themed by it were the type of stories I enjoyed creating the most. Well, as you can surmise, my life has been a tad hectic over the last couple years. Because of that, my submittals to Ordinary Times dropped off. It is not that I didn’t have things I wanted to write about. On the contrary, I had plenty to say, I just didn’t have the time to focus on writing with all that was happening.

Things have slowed down somewhat now and I would like to become more active again. Ordinary Times is loaded with talent and I am proud to be associated with them. That feeling I have deep down inside that Paul sings about? That feeling manifests itself in different ways when I really contemplate it.

I miss writing, the terrifying yet exciting way it feels when I put something together and hand it over for editing and publication (hopefully).

“I’ve got a feeling, a feeling I can’t hide, oh yeah! If you get a chance, take the time out and listen to “I’ve Got a Feeling.” If it doesn’t get your toes tapping or give you a good feeling about your day or your life, well my friend you need to sit down and take a break from your day and find your own version of Zen. There are many ways to achieve it and if you look hard enough you will be surprised of how close to the surface it actually is.

My Zen is music and I’m looking forward to sharing that with you from time to time here within the confines of Ordinary Times.

More to come…

E Pluribus Unum