If you’re at all like me, the disappointment that summer is over is tempered by the prospect of returning to the Hilltop. Normally, after the first month of summer vacation, I’m clamoring to get back to school. While I’m certainly excited to be back at Georgetown for another year, I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with the fact that the last weeks of summer will be punctuated by the end of my childhood on my 21st birthday. As my mother tells me every chance she gets, I still have a lot of growing up to do.

Why I wanted to extend this particular summer seemed like a mystery at first. As Elvis Costello sang in “The Other Side of Summer,”There’s malice and there’s magic in every season” – the magic wasn’t lacking, per se, but there was a disproportionate amount of malice this time around. First of all, the weather was atrocious. I know it was uncomfortably and unseasonably hot in some areas of the country, but in Rhode Island, it was just plain dreary most of the time: We had the ninth-coolest June on record and the second-wettest July ever.

The economic forecast has been no less gloomy. A tent city for the homeless sprang up in Providence, and the unemployment rate rose to the second-highest in the country – around 12.7 percent. I was fortunate enough to have been offered a job at a bank, only to learn that the company was forced to institute a hiring freeze, meaning I would have to look elsewhere.

As far as I could see, I had two options: I could work for the state, possibly with the tourism division, or I could forge ahead with my stubborn plan to make it as a freelance musician. I chose the second option. I played in churches, restaurants, bars, lesbian bars (my grandparents were thrilled to hear that), nursing homes (my grandparents actually were thrilled to hear that), fundraisers, political events-you name it. I also taught music to a bunch of 10- and 12-year-olds at a camp and ran a 17-piece orchestra for a high school musical.

It may seem like a lot of work – and it was – but at the time, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything productive with my summer. I was thankful to have opportunities to make money, especially by doing something I enjoyed, but at the same time it felt somehow unjust that while everywhere around me people couldn’t find work in any field, there I was pretending to be Billy Joel and getting paid for it. I almost felt guilty – not about having a job, but about the frivolity of being an entertainer when more pressing needs remain unfulfilled.

And then, like many other male musicians, I became convinced I was doing the right thing when a certain woman entered my life. Or three, to be precise.

The first was Elsa, a student at the camp I was working at who was visiting from France. She had been very shy for most of the first week, but on audition day, she told me I had inspired her to perform. She played two beautiful French songs and came out of her shell. I was so proud of her that I offered her the Rhode Island version of an Eagle Scout badge – a doughnut. She accepted.

Next was Eve, a woman at the nursing home I played at. Every week she would ask me to play the same song she danced to with her husband when they were younger, and each time I played it, she would break down in tears. Every single time. It was beautiful to watch.

The last woman, I’m sorry to say, is no longer with us. Her name was Etta, and she lived in the same nursing home that my grandfather lived in. I used to play Ray Charles songs for her. I was supposed to play at her birthday party, but she didn’t make it that far. I ran into her family at a recent gig. After talking with them for a while, her son told me that Etta prayed for me to come back and play for her.

None of this is meant to convince you that I’m any good at what I do. But in a summer with so much malice, I found some magic. I was given the rare opportunity to see the impact I made on the lives of three strangers. My new school year’s resolution for all of you: Worry less about how close you are to reaching your lofty goals and focus on the magic you’re already making.

Colin Nagle is a junior in the College. He can be reached at naglethehoya.com. Getting in Tune appears every other Friday.

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