E

very time I hear the song “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” it whisks me back to the summer of 1975. The radio seemed to play the tune every morning before my good friend, Juana Moore, and I would leave out for workshops at a band camp we were attending at the University of Southern Mississippi.

I find it ironic that Elton John’s song always takes me back to that dorm room where we stayed, the mornings getting dressed for the day and my friendship with Juana, but we all know there are catalysts that can take you on a journey back in time.

Smells are another good source for conjuring up the past.

When traveling down a road, the car fills with the putrid smell of skunk, and I am right back in a tent at a Girl Scout camp out when my friends and I had an untimely encounter with the striped creature. It heard us inside our tent laughing and giggling, and it got scared. We heard something rustling in the leaves outside, we got scared, and yep, you guessed it. It took forever to get that wretched smell out of my sleeping bag.

Happy memories or nostalgia that pop up out of nowhere put a smile on my face and give me that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you wake up and realize it is Saturday.

A social psychologist and his team at North Dakota State have studied nostalgic memories and found these memories typically entail cherished, personal moments such as those spent with loved ones. Those memories, in turn, inspire positive feelings of joy, high self-regard, belonging and meaningfulness in life.

I have just spent a week on the beach with my family, and in addition to cherishing these moments with my parents, siblings, children and grandchildren, it never fails that when we’re together we recall times from our past.

My brother and I recalled childhood days at our grandmother’s house, and while listening to him tell his perspective of those days gone by, I realized those times in our lives and remembering them are priceless.

That psychologist and his team were right. While sitting there talking and sharing moments of our childhood with my brother, my heart felt full and the since of connectedness was reassuring to me.

Good memories are sweet.

However, just like a scoop of ice cream on a hot sunny afternoon, memories will eventually melt away until someone or something dips them back out with a smell, a song or a chat. Then the memories transport you back to a place and time that puts a smile on your face, contentment in your heart and meaning to your life.

Moreover, if you do not want to wait around for that chance moment to reminisce, just put on that song or bake those cookies that remind you of your past. That works too!

 

Terri Frazier is a staff writer at The Post. Reach her at terri.frazier@vicksburgpost.com.