Trigger

This might be my favorite time of year. It takes me back to lazing all day on the lawn at Somerset Drive, to sleeping with my window open on Pappadopulos Lane and hearing the creek rush past, to voluntarily walking the 167 steps south of campus at the BY to see the hill in bloom.

Once upon an acting class, I learned you can use a specific image associated with a memory to pull up the feelings you had at the time. It’s called a “trigger,” a technique that can help you tap into powerful emotions on demand. My acting prof.’s trigger was kissing the crown of his (future) wife’s head before he said goodbye as a 19-year-old missionary. With that image he could feel love, regret, fear, or anticipation. I can’t remember what my trigger was, so it must not have been that great--hence my absence from the recent Academy Awards. But every once in a while I’m lucky enough to chance upon a trigger and experience it for its own sake.

A few days ago I was dropping Wade off at the airport, and just before we exited I-15, I went through a pocket of memory as powerful as any pocket of electromagnetism survived by Desmond on Lost. I was eighteen again, and Grandma Jean and Grandpa Bob were driving me home from the airport after my London study abroad.

I was sitting in the back of the car, Grandma Jean was at the wheel, and a snowy-haired Grandpa Bob sat shotgun, navigating the newly constructed exits. He may have dropped an expletive during the few moments it appeared we were headed to Provo. At the time, the moment seemed to be so much about me—returning from my intellectual adventure with my new Sabrina haircut, my grandparents dispatched in the carefully orchestrated event that was to be my triumphal return.

But this time around, the experience was about Grandma and Grandpa. For a minute I felt like I was in Grandpa’s presence again, and I thought about how much I miss him. I remembered the two of them making a list for me of the places they loved to go—Greenwich Village, Leicester Square, the Tower. I remembered Grandma Jean loaning me her paisley scarf, Grandpa taking me to Marie Callendar’s before I left and saying, “Oh, to be in London.” They were bringing me home from a trip they’d gone on many times, one they’d take again if they could. And I wasn’t lucky to have gone so much as I was lucky to have them help me complete my journey.

Back in the present, that off-ramp trigger left me awash in sweetness, longing, and gratitude that stayed with me after Wade and his luggage were safely deposited at Terminal 2. So I popped Frank Sinatra—Grandpa’s favorite—into the CD player, and rode those feelings all the way home.

What are your triggers?