“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” — Virginia Woolf

I was scanning through some old pictures while looking for a certain image to highlight a conversation I was engaged in and smiled at the memories in the scroll. We forget the blessing of pictures in our march through time. I am that person taking pictures at gatherings because I want to lock in some of those memories. Of course, there’s a fine line between locking in memories and living in the moment. We must first live should the moment slip away.

In the moment, we know when something is special because we enjoy it so, but we may not realize the impact on our life until well after. We become anchored to these moments with memories—both our own and those of others, through photographs and other media, and through triggers. My mind would go back to the summer between high school and freshman year of college were I to smell the cologne I wore at that time. It floods back to me even writing about that cologne. I haven’t worn cologne since then, making it a uniquely strong trigger for that time in my life.

I’m attending a reunion tonight that will place me with some of people who may associate me with that cologne. Surely that’s not the whole of my identity, but it might be something that would trigger memories of the character I was then. Reunions are time travel events on their own, and surely stories will bring us back there more than some long lost production of cologne. In all that jovial recollection I hope we remember to savor the moment to lock in those memories to follow. For that’s what makes life beautiful.