The Water Bottle Blog


I’ve never been one to keep mementos from the past. I don’t take pictures, I don’t collect nick-knacks, & I don’t keep a journal. I’ve always been a more visceral person. I capture my moments by focusing on what I am sensing at that time. The scents, smells, touch, tastes, & sounds are what mark the memorable times. Tangible reminders can be lost, & with them goes the memories. Sensory-embedded memories last as long as your mental-health.

Although I don’t keep mementos, there have been constants in my life that I have always had use for. One of those things was an orange, Back Trails© water bottle. It finally cracked last night. Although I never used this as a mnemonic device in the past, when I threw it in the garbage can, all of the memories that I associated with that bottle came flooding back.

From 2001-2005, I was in high school. I went to General William Mitchell High School in Colorado Springs, CO. The school colors were orange & blue. I had a pathological habit for matching in those days. When we had school colors day during spirit week, I would go all out. Clothes, jewelry, backpack, accessories, Discman, & even the CD were all blue, orange, &/or some neutral color. My Sophmore-year, my mom bought me an orange, Back Trails© water bottle. My Junior-year, I started singing in the Jazz/Show Choir (Encore). The Encore & the Chamber Choir (Madrigals) would sing the National Anthem at all of the Varsity Home Football Games. I would drink from that bottle before singing. I remembered putting in my blue pack that I would bring all of my game snacks in. I remembered how the heater in school was broken 1 day & we had the heater on for several days in the summer when school was ending.

I could write volumes about my fond high school memories, because 1 just begats another (& so on), but that night, they all seemed to stem from that orange water bottle. I simply lost a water bottle, not my memories of high school, but throwing away that bottle beckoned a huge wave of nostalgia from the sea of my dormant memories. “Memories… hazy, water-color memories of da way we wuz.”