How I Am

[Professor Bhaer, sung]
She asks how I am
And so, how am I?
My days are the usual day
I wake up, I go out
Time goes by

My days are exactly the days
I have lived since arriving here
In fact, how I am is amazed how
This comforts me year by year

I work and I eat
Life is muffins and jam
The house is nice and quiet now
That is how I am

Five years in these rooms
Reading Hegel and Kant
My mind is devoted to thoughts
On the meaning of life

What more could I want?

So why is it lately I find
I’m uneasy all through the night?
And why even now does my skin
Feel explosive as dynamite?

Why does my heart pound
Like a battering ram?
How can she ask me how I am?
How I am is fine!

“Dear Miss March, there is nothing
Dramatic or new to report
This will be short

Morning and evening I live
In my usual way
On the day you return
You will see for yourself

Tell me Miss March, are you happy so far
From the clang and the beat of our turbulent street?

Quite often I think of our days in New York
Though of course since you went I have been quite content."

Ach!

I wake in the morning
And all that I hear
Is the absence of sound

Yes!

My peace is disturbed
But the ruckus is me
As my thoughts run aground

I wanted a life by myself in these rooms
And now all around me another life looms
Who asked her to come and to go
And to leave me like that?

And now she expects me to send her a note?
With words, if I spoke, that would stick in my throat
Who asked her to change how I live, how I think
How I am?

She asks how I am
How can I reply
I go through my daily routine
I give lessons, I wait

Time goes by

Yet lately I find there is
Pleasure in humming a silly tune
And some days I go to the park
And I sit there all afternoon

Some evenings I swear
I can hear a door slam
The house is far too quiet now
That is how I am