Yesterday, I was going on about getting the Pfizer COVID-19 jab and a bit of the process I use to relax as it’s being administered and realised there’s another story in there to be told.
Key to finding that moment of calm and Zen is having my mind playing a piece of music over and over in my mind so that it becomes relatively easy to tune out everything else that’s going on around me.
It’s a technique I’ve found very helpful when I’ve had a nasty headache or some pain that’s vexing me and it is also useful for not tensing up during an injection provided the nurse plays along and doesn’t distract me with the play-by-play or the countdown.
Yesterday’s mental playlist featured “Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione that was suggested by the Traverse reaching that part of the “WFOX – Jazz” playlist. “Feels So Good” is the title track from the 1977 album and is one of Chuck’s most recognisable tracks.
The irony was palpable given what was about to happen. 😉
This tune is rather special to me not just because it’s a lovely smooth jazz song with the trumpet being very noticeable pretty much throughout. Even though I tend to prefer the saxophone’s sound, my father played many instruments but he started out playing the trumpet and I tend to like tunes in which it is featured.
But the thing that sets this particular trumpet track apart from the others is that it reminds me so much of many happy times spent visiting Grandma and Grandpa at their house in Port Orange prior to Dad and I moving to their neighbourhood upon his retirement from the Army in 1986.
I can vividly remember that corner bedroom just down the short corridor from the kitchen in the general direction of the beach that was about five miles away and the clock/radio with those metal numbers that would drop the top half of the two plates to keep the time.
The reason I mention that is that every time I stayed there, it was guaranteed that the local radio station would play “Feels So Good” at least once and often more than a few times.
It got to the point where I’d hear “Feels So Good” and my thoughts would instantly shift toward the Daytona Beach area and the joyful and peaceful times spent in that house on York Way.
Even to this day, I can’t hear that track without seeing that house and that bedroom in my mind’s eye and remembering a time when things seemed so much calmer and simpler. A peaceful, perfect moment.
And *THAT* my friends is why it was the perfect track to be playing in my head when the needle was heading toward my arm… 🙂