Stop Time

Higher Love
Someone Like You

I know scent is the strongest sense tied to memory. Although I only went there a handful of times when I was very young, I still get taken back to my Grandparents house in Cambridge when someone just comes in from smoking a cigarette.  The smell of cum trees takes me back to a spring day when I was riding my bike up Kimberwick (a street I would later be arrested on on the same bicycle). And the smell of a certain cologne reminds me of dead fish, because my brother used half a bottle of it to cover up the smell of his when it died.
In a whiff, a breath, these fragrant time capsules take me back to times and moments I haven't thought of in years or decades.
For me, I think a close second in terms of epoch recall is music. Music has played both an active and passive role in my life. Sometimes only as background music as life carries on, and other times as a tool to suppress or embellish certain feelings or emotions.
Sometimes hearing a certain song can have such a strong trigger that I'm immediately taken back to a time in my life. Reading Lord of the Rings, driving in my tinted, black Honda with chrome rims, breaking up with a girlfriend, grade school dances, rolling in the gym, sitting in the back of my Mom's minivan. Uncle Kracker, Tupac, Korn, Crazy Town, Cloudkicker, Seal...
While not as jarring as the trigger of scent, music is captured much more easily.  My newest addiction has been building a truly beautiful playlist on Spotify. With cassettes and tapes, music was often lost too easily, or borrowed too freely. By keeping track of my music digitally I feel like I can capture tiny moments and keep them forever.
Not only do I enjoy finding these gems by scouring music websites, but linking this great music to new and powerful memories is also rewarding. I might not remember a certain Black Keys song, or a certain moment in the back of Ant's Jeep in 20 years, but if I keep collecting and adding, I just might be able to live a moment over again that I otherwise would have forgotten.