Mementos; Response to "On Longing" quotes

          Mementos are physical representations of a memory. They are souvenirs of the past and our travels, places we've been and things we have done. It is said that smell is the strongest memory trigger but it is difficult to keep or collect smells, so most collect trinkets or objects. I keep drawers of mementos, little do-dads and thing-a-ma-bobs that remind me of things such as times or places from my childhood. Some of these things still hold a scent that makes the link to the memory even stronger and works as a trigger for that specific memory. Most of these objects look like junk and random pieces of things that should be thrown out and have no use, which is true to people who do not have a connection to them but untrue to the person who collected them for which they are useful objects for traveling back in time to a memory you may have forgot or will eventually forget otherwise. Even for a memory that cannot be forgotten the memento is a physical piece of that memory, a stronger connection, that keeps it from simply being a memory, an intangible thing that we are afraid can dissipate without any anchor to hold us to it or allow us to physically keep it, which is the purpose or use of the memento, an anchor, so that the metaphorical boat cannot drift away on an unseen current before we can grab a hold of it and pull it back. It is a stabilizing method to keep the memory in the physical world and not just the invisible and intangible one of our memory.