Every now and again it’s really nice to have a stroll down memory lane and this weekend we did just that. It’s my Husband’s birthday on Friday and we were struggling to know what to get him, my daughter had a fabulous idea, and suggested getting down all his ‘old vinyl’ and getting him a turntable. She’d done some research and even found one that she thought he would like. So that’s what we did. However, the buying of the turntable was the easy part as it also necessitated us going into the loft to retrieve said ‘old vinyl’ so that he could play them!
I found it quite really enjoyable rummaging through the loft with her as she was now of an age where she has a younger ‘childhood’ and we had kept quite a lot of their younger toys (well you never know if they may come in handy down the line!) so it was really lovely to see her reminiscing along with me as I had found things that had long since been forgotten.
After a while we found the box that we were looking for, and because we were all so excited none of us could wait until Friday to give him our gift so we dutifully wrapped it and gave it to him as soon as he returned from cricket!
Now I don’t know about you, but there is something about music that transports me almost immediately to a time and place, often a happy memory that makes me smile, a memory maybe rarely visited or completely forgotten. Saturday evening was no exception as we spent hours listening to music that we listened to whilst we were at University, music that was around before we were married over twenty years before, even listened to as teenagers, we remembered friends, places, and silly stories of things that had happened, it was like our own little time machine, a piece of our history that we were then sharing with our children, a time that they had not been part of!
This of course isn’t a new idea, we all remember things by using our senses, often these are referred to as triggers, when you hear, see, feel, taste or smell something it can have the effect of triggering a memory which often creates a feeling you may even find that some senses will be more dominant than others and that’s completely ok it’s always about finding out what works for you. This is often why having a good clear out can make you feel more energised because the things that we keep around us will have ‘triggers’ associated to them too, but more about that another time!
Sometimes knowing about triggers is one of those powerful tools that we have in our kit bag that we often overlook as being either overused or maybe out of date, but it’s usefulness never wanes. So whether you want to be transported in time so that you can reminisce happy memories with loved ones, or maybe you want to remember that motivated feeling that you get when you’re at the gym or maybe you just want to remember the memory of a summer holiday, never underestimate the power of a trigger, whether musical or not, can have.
with love
Andrea x
