There’s something about music that can crystallize a memory for me like nothing else.
John Mayer’s “Why Georgia” is the plane ride leaving boot camp, when a brand new, young Sailor quietly wondered, “Am I living it right?” as she stared out the window at the clouds. Or “Applause” by Lady Gaga is scorched into my memory because it scored the cheer routine of my daughter’s very first Pop Warner team. Naturally, I was the Team Mom and, naturally, I knew the entire routine by heart.
My year of country-hopping around South America with nothing in tow but my small dog, Milo, and a few suitcases of stuff is littered with songs that instantly transport me someplace magical.
“Electric Lady” by Janelle Monáe will always be Montevideo to me. Somehow, that always managed to be the song playing from my Alexa while I danced around my modest apartment, hanging tiny loads of laundry all around to dry after being washed in that little under-the-counter machine in my kitchen. A lovely apartment with the windows always open because the breeze felt too good to shut out. Rays of warm sunlight stretching across the floor while stray leaves and tiny, delicate pale pink flower petals drifted in from the trees lining the street below.
Montevideo wasn’t pristine, either. The streets were grimy enough that I wiped Milo’s paws every single time we came back inside — something I’d never had to do in Lima, where I could put my bag of trash out at the curb any night of the week after 9 pm and it would magically disappear by morning. No, sometimes the streets in Montevideo felt downright sticky, but the city had such a worn-in beauty nonetheless. Colorful facades softened by time framed tall doorways opening into hidden courtyards and clusters of apartments tucked back from the street, where life seemed to unfold just out of view. We circled the blocks near home or ventured to the massive Sunday street market where you can buy anything from clothes to fabrics to make clothes to actual washing machines to wash said clothes, quietly enjoying preserved colonial building fronts that housed residential homes and businesses alike… and somehow, “Electric Lady” always seemed to be playing while I existed inside that version of my life.
Tems’ “Me & U” belongs to La Paz. With the opening notes, I’m back in Bolivia, bopping down the street in a half walk, half dance – sometimes even throwing in a little spin or a cha cha, especially if I had to wait at a crosswalk. I stayed less than a five minute walk from the Mi Teleférico station, so it was all too easy to ditch the Uber app, purchase a rechargeable transit card, and start moving around more like a local. In particular, I made multiple trips to the SENASAG office across town trying to get Milo’s travel paperwork sorted out and, after enough rides, I had my favorite routes memorized, and enough confidence to put Google Maps on mute and just move through the bustling city with music in my ears. By then, the soundtrack had expanded to include Renee Rapp’s “I Think I Like You Better (When You’re Gone)” and “The Man I Need” by Olivia Dean – all a vibe that just felt… so good.
And then there’s Costa Rica.
We were in Costa Rica at the onset of the rainy season (as opposed to the slightly less rainy season), when daily downpours washed the world for hours at a time. Milo absolutely hated the rain. He was simply terrified, becoming agitated even before it started because he could already sense the shift in the atmosphere. His whole little body would go rigid with trembling while I held him against my chest, rubbing his belly and singing softly to calm him down – Snoh Aalegra’s “I Want You Around”.
“I don’t wanna kiss you… I just want to feel you… I want you around.” I’d squeeze his little body and will him to calm down and know that he was perfectly safe. Just a little… torrential downpour.
But honestly, most of Costa Rica’s soundtrack belonged to the pericos.
Every morning around five and every evening just before dusk, what felt like the entire population of San José’s impossibly bright green parrots gathered in the trees outside my condo. Loud. Chaotic. Deeply committed to whatever they were talking about.
In my head, they were holding daily briefings — gathering at sunrise to receive their marching orders for the day and reconvening at sunset to debrief the day’s events. Maybe that interpretation says more about my military background than it does about the birds.
Either way, they were chatty as hell, and my favorite part of the day.
I’d sit outside on the patio in the egg chair and watch flashes of brilliant green zip from tree to tree while the people casually went on about their days beneath them. Pura Vida. Every now and then, a rainbow-colored macaw would appear like it had nowhere special to be, completely oblivious to its own breathtaking beauty.
I think that’s one of my favorite things about travel. You expect to remember the landmarks. The excursions. The “important” moments. But sometimes what stays with you is the music that played while you quietly built a life somewhere else.
The song that played while you hung laundry in the sunlight.
The soundtrack of your walk home.
The birds outside your patio every morning.
Those are the moments that seem to stay in the body the longest, ultimately creating the soundtrack of a life well-lived.
