I Feel Alive and Comfortable

Rai, I feel old. This morning, I was proof-reading a personal essay that one of former students wants to submit as part of her college applications. Near the end of the essay, I read this line: "I believe that old songs can make adults feel really alive and comfortable."
On Friday and Saturday nights this past weekend, I found myself listening to old songs and feeling really alive and comfortable. It's funny, I wouldn't call the songs old necessarily. They're just from the early to mid '90s, but it's not my opinion that counts. If I asked that student, I'm sure she would not only call songs from the '90s old, but maybe even ancient. I guess that means that I'm an adult, and old.
The second annual Outside Lands Music Festival is on in Golden Gate Park and the final bands on Friday and Saturday nights are bands that would please most of us 30-something old, adults out there. Pearl Jam played the main stage on Friday night, digging all the way back to Ten and Versus, they certainly played a lot of 'old' songs that were a big hit with us geezers. Saturday night, Dave Matthews Band, another band with a lot of old songs, took the stage. Both evenings, I clung to the fence, huddling with the hundred of other folks who hadn't bought tickets, opting to instead listen for free from the outside.
On Friday night, Rai, you were there and hours before Pearl Jam hit the stage, you were loving Tom Jones. We were celebrating a fellow math teacher's birthday and there's no better way than by grooving to Tom Jones. Your Mom told us how when she was 15 years old, Pearl Jam had played a show in the very same spot and that she and some friends had jumped the fence to get inside. After the sun set, and your Mom took you home, the rest of us, inspired by your Mom's heroic tale, briefly considered jumping the fence but decided against it only because of the controversy that would follow the absence of three of us at school on Monday were we to end up in jail.
The next evening, I was back for Dave Matthews. All those songs brought back memories of my high school and early university days, good memories all of them. I felt very alive and comfortable and was left wondering if my student had simply observed adults happy when listening to the music of their generation of if she really understood the power of song to bring one back to another time and another place.