Have you ever been going about your life, just minding your own business, when suddenly you're a kid again? There's a split-second short-circuit in your wires and you can see through the eyes of the old young you.
I have these experiences on occasion. I will be listening to a CD and a melody somehow transports me back to another time. Suddenly I want to drop whatever I am doing and just remember. The most unusual part of this: I had never heard that album or the song that triggers the memory until 7 or 8 years ago. The melody takes me back to when I was 12 or 13 and I know they were not playing this album on the oldies station I listened to at that age. Maybe they ripped off another song I was familiar with, but I can't say that for sure.
There are other triggers, but they make far more sense. When I smell pre-breaded fish sticks/triangles/whatever-they-are cooking, I remember walking outside one crisp winter day in my hometown in Indiana. We lived across the street from a hospital and when they cooked fish in the cafeteria, the whole neighborhood would smell of it.
When I smell chili, I remember sitting in the gym of my elementary school during their open house/chili supper night.
When I use an Xacto knife, I remember when I was 15 and my grandparents from Pennsylvania were visiting the house. I had bought a thick used book from the library and I was turning it into a hollow book so I'd have a safe place to stash my valuables. I was sitting on the living room floor in front of the fireplace. I probably carved out the inside of that book for a solid 6 hours. I was annoyed that my grandparents were gone for so long visiting other friends in the next town over and was slicing away at the book just to kill time.
The smell of exhaust reminds me of riding with my mother in our station wagon through a snowy landscape. We were going out for groceries during an Indiana winter and we were stuck behind an old white boat of a car.
It's strange how the mind works and how it catches these little moments. It seems like these triggers only refer to childhood memories. I don't know when the cutoff is, but I suspect our brains are better able to retain memories when we are younger.
Then there is a different phenomenon, something I like to call a time-crossing. More on that later.
