magnificence!

I was sitting in my class one morning last week, just minding my own business, trying to pay attention and not fall asleep. It's not that it's not an interesting class, I'm fairly interested in the subject and it has the potential to have practical implications in my life. The problem is that I hadn't got a lot of sleep the night before, or the night before that, or the night before that. Someone once told me that college is about three things: sleep, homework and fun, but you can only pick two. It's quite true, and my m.o. is to drop the first thing on the list.

But anyways, I'm sitting in class and we're about to break into small groups when one of the other students starts complaining about all the noise outside. "What in the world is all that?" My professor laughs her deep, throaty laugh that is somehow mildly annoying. "I'm sure we'll find out soon enough." I think her laugh is only annoying because it follows 80% of her statements. Listening to the sounds that is distracting everyone, I realize it's music. Loud music. Live music, right outside the classroom in the middle of the day. And definitely not the kind of cheesy guitar playing or almost on beat rapping I would expect at my school in the late a.m. Bright, upbeat, rich music. What in the world is going on?
If I was having a hard time focusing on class because I was tired before, I was certainly no longer tired, but I was twice as antsy to get out of class before whoever or whatever was creating this crazy beautiful music was gone. After what seemed like an eternity, I left class and scurried into the warm sunshine and deep rhythms.
There, on the lawn across from the cafeteria was a band comprised of about 10 beautiful men making the most beautiful music that could accompany sunshine. This was not an event that happened every day here. There were not the kind of people I was used to seeing here. Several types of drums, a keyboard, at least a guitar, and multiple fantastic vocals, the men danced and even called out some of the students to dance along. My sister had been frantically texting me and I met up with her and ecstatically gazed at the wondrous miracle before us.
Apparently from the Dominican Republic, the band's music was sort of a combination of Caribbean, reggae, gospel, and big band music. I'm not really an expert on what different genres of music are called or how to identify them, so pardon my ignorance. All I know is this music made me want to dance and my heart want to smile.
Students walked past the musicians, some lingering for a moment, some smiling as they walked by, some bewildered, some complacent. Others stopped and stood or sat in happy fascination along with my sister and I. After a while she had to get to class, but I just sat there as long as I could.
it isn't often that I am greeted with such a magnificent surprise, undeserved, unsuspected, unannounced. This particular surprise touched every part of my soul, engaged all my senses, made my mind forget everything that made it ache and, for a few beautiful moments, let my heart soar. I know this all sounds little bit dramatic. Calm down, I'm not loosing it. I embrace my dramatic reception of this event. If you don't embrace the little things in life, all you see is the nasty things. So blow the "little things" out of proportion. I like to ramble about the hour and a half of my day that honestly made me happy. It's magnificent.