My favorite memories are those that make us pause just a little bit longer. Do you ever catch yourself recalling a memory, and when you stop thinking about it, it’s as if you awoke from a dream? I love that feeling! I also love memories with a ripple effect.

Something as simple as an unexpected chill from a cool breeze can summon a memory from fall. From there you remember a special time you had at a football game or maybe a pumpkin patch. Enter loved ones and friends, and just like that, memory lane takes you to places you never wanted to leave in the first place.

My wife Shannon was putting away dishes the other day. I don’t recall exactly what I was doing, but the clanking of the ceramic plates and the rattle of the silverware instantly placed me on my bicycle, riding home from work in Santa Barbara. I worked as a sous chef at a private club there when I lived in California years ago. I often rode a bike to and from work because it wasn’t a long ride and the weather was usually a perfect 75 degrees at night.

In the evenings, I always rode home past a bed and breakfast with a restaurant attached to the back. I could always hear the sounds through the screen door of the kitchen – dishes and silverware being put away for the night. The cool air blew across my face as I would coast by. I would imagine the guests settling in for the evening after a cozy dinner. The chefs, dishwashers and servers, all like me, were preparing to wind down at home or their favorite watering hole. I loved that feeling! I never once took a different route because I always wanted to hear the sound of those clanking dishes.

Two of our three children are out of our home and in college now. Our youngest will soon follow and it will just be me, Shannon and the dogs. I can already hear how different it will sound. Loud steps won’t clammer down the stairs followed by that time honored question: “what’s for dinner?” The dogs won’t jump up quite as often to see who entered the room and I won’t hear the joy in my son’s voice after his soccer games. Oh, how time is a thief.

But just because someone has left our home or this earth, it doesn’t mean they’re gone. I think that’s why it’s called “making” memories. Those moments and people that we never forget are hanging around for a reason. Home is not just a place, but it’s a space made for people and things to live forever. There is something within us that knows when to slow down and make life matter. Even the everyday routine echoes with sounds of home.  We rely on those tiny moments that make up the big ones.

My mind would always shift to Mississippi after that bike ride in Santa Barbara. That warm and cozy feeling emitted from that little bed and breakfast would make me long for home. I would imagine what my parents were doing in their warm and cozy home. I would picture the small light left on in their kitchen and how different their house must’ve have sounded at that point in their lives. I loved going home, even when I couldn’t be there.

So what about the bad memories you may ask? The unwanted thoughts that have a way of over staying their welcome? I think they belong in our homes too. Because for every single bad memory that I have, I also have a good one attached to it. I could give examples, but I don’t have to. Everyone has their own experience of a rainbow after the storm. I visit my bad memories as often as my good ones, because the more time I spend with them, the less they seem to hurt.

This past weekend Shannon and I were under the same roof with all three of our children. Although brief, the sounds of laughter made a place for nostalgia. Memories were made and tucked away to be revisited another time. Later that evening our oldest son had to return to Starkville. We were down to our daughter and our youngest son, and a couple of friends that were visiting, but the sounds of home still sang through the halls.

Eventually everyone went their separate ways for the night, and I retreated to my computer. I tapped away at the keys while college football played on television. The Bulldogs were on. Although a Rebel myself, I used to love watching MSU with my grandmother. She was a Bulldog through and through. I could faintly hear the cowbells clanging and the chants of maroon and white. Then, just like that, I was somewhere else, somewhere never far away.

Clay Bowen is a Columbus native who cooked professionally as a chef in fine dining for 12 years and appeared on the third season of Top Chef. He is also a licensed landscape horticulturist. Bowen writes in his free time and is working on a book about his experiences and travel. Email him at [email protected].

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