nostalgia is the greatest sense

I was sitting here tonight, thinking about how I could possibly motivate myself to get ready for a night out when my phone rang. It wasn't someone I was expecting to hear from, nor was it someone I speak to very often. Yet in that first moment that I heard the voice on the other end of the line, I felt overcome with the warmth of nostalgia. Interesting how our senses work. How hearing a certain voice, for only a moment, can set us on a journey back in time. How that one sound can continue to reverberate within us for hours, or days, or even weeks, bathing us with the beauty of moments past. It's the same as when you're driving down a country road with the windows open, and you pass a freshly cut lawn. The smell of that grass encircles you in its entirety until you become lost in memories of childhood, times of running and playing, times when innocence abounded. It was that same feeling I got tonight when I answered the phone. Hearing that voice encompassed me in the memories of exurberant youth. Careless, reckless, and exciting times. Sweet, tender, and heartwrenching times. Times when the sun rose too early and passion refused to vanish. Times when the road was too short and returns came too soon. Times when the blackness of night and depression and sickness could be comforted only by that one voice. Times when the tears fell without reason or abandon. Times when laughter drowned every thought or worry or care in the world. So many moments and memories a single sense can recreate within us. How mystifying and yet how beautiful the gifts our senses bring us.