Triggers and Treasures: What Bodice Rippers, Puerto Rico, and Iron Man Have in Common
Songs, foods, bad cologne, Iron Man..memory is just weird as hell.
Last week, I was running errands when Three Little Birds came on the radio. Love that song.
For a moment, I was back in Puerto Rico.
Several years ago, the Balkan Storm and I were sitting at this little poolside cantina when the sky went from bright and perfect to shit's about to get real in about thirty seconds.
I learned that's normal there.
We grabbed a deck of cards and started playing rummy as the rain fell.
Then the storm hit. Chairs and umbrellas cartwheeled past us into the pool, thunder boomed, and the rain wasn't falling so much as attacking us.
But the bartender nonchalantly walked around pulling down flimsy little window shades, and turned up Three Little Birds.
The entire cantina, soaked and laughing like lunatics, sang along at the top of our lungs while everything around us was just going completely apeshit.
It's my all-time favorite vacation memory.
And every time I hear that song, I’m right back there. I feel the rain on my arms, the metal chair under me, and smell the rum and sunscreen in the air.
For a few seconds, I'm not here - I'm there.
When I make barbecue chicken, I’m a kid at Grandma's house on July 4th, barefoot, sparklers in both hands, my fingers sticky with sauce.
The smell of turkey sends me right back to Thanksgiving morning, glued to the Macy’s parade, impatiently waiting for the Rockettes, and loitering in the kitchen trying to sneak an Alabama biscuit.
Trashy romance paperbacks remind me of my great Grandma Searcy. A little white-haired church lady with a full collection of nasty bodice rippers.
I asked her once why she read them so much, and she said: "Honey, just cause there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean there ain’t a fire in the furnace".
It's not all like that, though.
A certain cologne drags me back to my tragic post-divorce era. Seeing anything Abercrombie & Fitch reminds me of my unfortunate choice in men who were already too old to wear that shit.
TV wrestling, Vaseline, and nunchucks remind me of the father I had instead of the one I needed.
Certain soups bring back the days of an eating disorder that's still right there, waiting for me to slip.
And then there's the memories you choose to make; for my daughter and I, that's Marvel.
I have a little shelf in my office with gifted Marvel merch.
She's got enough character tees, posters, and collectibles to open her own booth at Comic-Con.
But it’s our thing, you know? The movies, the inside jokes, the debates about who would win in a fight...it's what we do.
And years from now, one of those movies will come on, and I hope my daughter remembers how much fun we had in our little world of nerd-dom.
I know I will.
(Damn, that sounded way deeper than I meant for it to.)
Come for the fun stuff, stay for the weird stuff.
