Music and Memories

You ever put on an old mix CD and a long forgotten song comes on? And with that song comes a vivid memory of a specific time and place in your personal history? I think most of us can use music to document the key moments in our lives. Here is an example of one of mine.


Snow Patrol, “You’re all that I have”. From the summer of 2006

The previous months had been an absolute torrent of hell. I think that most of you know the back story so I won’t go into any details. My entire life, as I knew it, had ended and I was now left alone to try and forge something new. The sum total of my efforts for the previous several years had just been obliterated and I was starting over. Everything was terra incognita….new house, new relationships, new aspirations.

While there was a feeling of fear it was slowly being pushed out by the exhilaration associated with new possibilities. My slate was clean. I could pursue new hobbies or interests. I could learn from my past and forge new and more meaningful relationships. In many ways I was granted a second life.


So spent a week and visited my friend in Washington DC, something I had been meaning to do for years. I went to Austin City Limits with my cousin. I started to write music. I enrolled in a mentorship program. I dated with no regrets. I took up photography. I started attending early morning Kundalini Yoga sessions at the local Sikh Temple. I stepped up my efforts in church.


I wanted to experience my life in full color and for whatever reason that album from Snow Patrol really resonated. There was a yearning that I could relate to. I listened to that album incessantly because, for whatever reason, it was speaking to me.


Eventually life settled down into a comfortable and meaningful routine. I soon met Jodi and we would pick up new albums and artists along the way. That album would be pushed to the back of the playlist. But whenever it happens to get played it brings back a flood of those feelings from my experiences during the summer of 2006.