Songbirds take me into nostalgia, remembering the sounds of my youth. Certain noises and smells can do this. Mostly they bring me back to a feeling, and occasionally a memory.

I remember playing in the barn, organizing rusty trash from the sixties, piling hay on box springs and filling old jars with chestnuts. We would climb in the rafters of the chicken coup among the ancient poop covering the boards.

I remember walking through a gate in England on a long walk near White Horse, knowing love for my family. Feeling free and happy, I ran down the hill from the white chalked creature in the ground, rolling in the grass, breathing in the English air, taking in the freedom I felt.

I remember swinging in our back yard on Queen Ann with my best friend, lying on our tummies and eating from the popcorn bowl as we sailed by. I remember picking plums from the tree in the corner of our back yard, and building forts in the lower trees with our neighbors.

Waking up in the middle of the night in a Hong Kong hotel, riddled with jet lag, we would have a picnic of bread and cheese and grapes at 3:00 in the morning. I was feeling difficult and stressed, many miles of travel behind me, long walks through the city streets ahead of me, and another long flight to East Asia.

I remember rolling in the sand, like a hot dog in the sugar. We would play for hours in the waves soaking in the hot sun on our young little tan bodies; bathing suits filled with sand, nipples scabbed from surfing the waves on our bellies. Peanut butter fold overs, snow cones and bananas were our nutrients.

Walking through a sweaty back alley in Thailand, I had just bought a Fido shirt. We came across a dumpster, and the smell was so intense I threw up in the street. Still to this day I will occasionally encounter this smell of hot alley garbage, or perhaps the outdoor burning of a fire on a sweltering summer evening, bringing out a strawberry red sun.

Driving to school in the morning, my pops would sing to us. The smell of autumn leaves and city cars was present walking home in the chilled air. There was the excitement of new pencils and books, old friends renewed, and shiny patent leather shoes.

Old times, still buried deep in my mind, spirit and body. They are a part of me; they made me who I am. Just the sparkling of a leaf high on a tree in the sun or the smell of an airport will send me to a place within myself; a place where I was me, young, growing and learning. Today I am still this person, the memories of my life with me in my heart.