It's a beautiful day

This was the full name of a band from 1967 to 1974. It's a Beautiful Day was primarily the work of David LaFlamme, a former member of the Utah symphony. His specialty was a 5-string violin. He and his wife, Linda, and the rest of the band put out two albums. The first was self-titled and had a very non-60's cover: A girl in a white dress looking from a mountaintop, looking like a poster from The Sound of Music more than anything else. The song remembered most from this album, if you can find anyone who remembers it at all, is "White Bird." Other folks found "Warm Summer Day" a good tune, as well.

These were, for the most part, long songs, sort of reminiscent of what the Grateful Dead was doing at the time. In fact, LaFlamme was buddies with Jerry Garcia and was even auditioned for the Dead at one time. On their second, and last (as far as I know) album, Garcia sat in on two tracks. This album was titled Marrying Maiden and came out in 1970.

It's a beautiful day,not only because I am riding on the giddy rush of teenage hormones, but because the day is truly *beautiful* with or without some temporary sentimentality that clouds rational existence . It is perfect and made for me, and it makes me wonder if there is some sort of God looking over my insignificant life in the Matrix and just trying to please me. Like Shug Avery says in The Color Purple :

"God don't want to do nothing but please us. Do you ever stop to notice things like trees or the grass? I think God gets really pissed off when we don't notice something he made for us. Like the color purple in a field- that was made for our pleasure."

I love the day in general for its aesthetic beauty. I love the way that we are supposed to be at the ending cusp of winter and the leaves still yellow like fall, my favorite season of the year. I love how the air comes in crisp and windy and creates a sort of white noise that renders every outside trouble in the world quiet. Some people, myself included, live like bats and want to hide forever in some sort of nocturnal reality, but that is missing out on so much (besides the fact that it knocks one's circadian rhythm out of wack). Yes, there is sexiness and draw to the world of the night. But God or no God, it would really piss me off to go to the grave without ever sitting back and enjoying the crescendo of light in the sky as the sun rises. Or the stillness of the heat at noontimes, and the cool, crisp air of the late afternoons when you *know* that the sun is going to set soon. Some people may interpret appreciating nature as sap. But think about it- the very fact of existence, even on the cellular level, is amazing . "Taking something for granted" is often applied to the material in life but never applied to something as simple as actually *looking* at the clous when you pass them by. Yet it should be.

Saying that, take a word of good advice- get your butt off of e2, for five minutes, and just go outside ! Think. The effect of fresh air on the lungs, circulatory system, and brain is astounding. Walk, or run. You don't have to be an exercise buff to enjoy nature. Enjoy it- it was a writer's first inspiration and there is no reason to discard it now. Feel like a jungle kitten even if you live in the concrete jungle.