Do any of you find yourselves always associating a song, movie, smell, or anything else with a specific memory? I'm sure I'm just overly sentimental, but it happens to me ALL the time!!
For example, the other night, Mark and Jeff were talking about their common taste for Norah Jones' music, and specifically her newest album, "Feels Like Home." I thought about how that album always reminds me (and probably always will) of my third trimester of pregnancy, before Cal was born. That's when the album had just come out, and Jeff bought it because he was given a gift certificate to Best Buy as a tip while he was tying balloons.
The album has pleasant associations for me because I would listen to it while I would drive to and from different stores to get things for the nursery, and to and from my orchestra class (which seemed so ridiculous for me to be doing when my tummy was so big). The music reminds me of being big, but still active and capable--happy in my anticipation. I think we were even listening to it the night before my water broke and we rushed to the hospital. It was the perfect album for that time in my life, I think especially because the sound and feeling of the album seem so warm and cozy, ...so homey, which makes the title of the album very fitting. It was the perfect music to be enjoying while Jeff and I prepared to welcome a new little person into our home.
In contrast, we bought Coldplay's latest album, "X&Y," right before we left for a huge road trip earlier that summer. The road trip included a two-week stay with my parents in Orem, Utah, then a drive to Breckenridge, CO for the Foster Family Reunion, then a week's stay in Denver. We listened to the album many times in the car. During that time, I was on and off trying to fight morning sickness! That's what "X&Y" reminds me of sometimes! Isn't that sad? It has no reflection on the quality of the music--I still love to listen to it. It just reminds me of being kind of sick...
As I mentioned before, I find that this phenomenon of having strongly associated memories happens to me all the time. It's especially true of music, smells,...and restaurants, oddly enough (I must not go out to eat enough...) Does this happen to anyone else? Is there a scientific reason for it?
1 comment:
I'm not sure of the scientific reason for it, but I do the same thing with music. Nothing takes me back to a time or place more than a song.
I first fell in love with Norah's music a year ago when we were out in Cedaredge for a month. We were borrowing someone's car, and the only CD they had was "Come Away With Me", which I listened to nightly on my 45 minute drive up the mountain to our picturesque cabin on a beautiful like surrounded by thick lodge-pole pine forests. The early autumn evenings on Grand Mesa were so pleasant, the music so lovely and mellow . . . I hear that album now, and I can't help feeling nostaligic and a bit sad that those feeling of being comfortable and right in the world did not play out into reality.
But I'm very glad that now we're here in Worland. I'll have to find my own new song or album to become my Worland groove.
Thanks for an interesting post. And go Norah!!! When is her next album?
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