13. Sufjan Stevens - “Fourth Of July”

If the act of looking through old photo albums could have a soundtrack this would be it. With each delicate keystroke you can picture the dust rising from the pages and into the slanted rays of a setting sun as it sneaks through the window and over your shoulder. The dust from the pages forms a cloud that momentarily encompasses you in a haze of memory, but the memories are moving just like the dust, never standing still, darting every which way as you find yourself falling further and further into nostalgia. Eventually the dust begins to dissipate before your eyes, memories exhaust themselves, forever trapped in the past, receding and drifting away. The few particles that do remain get sucked in through measured breathes, sinking down into you, becoming part of you just like those certain memories that never seem to fade away no matter how hard you work them.

Losing those you love is haunting, especially when they become separated not only by time, but by space as well. There’s a dual barrier, an infinite and insurmountable abyss that stretches in between you and them, with memories being the only thing that can span it. Memories then become a comfort - the last remaining connection spanning the abyss that you try to preserve and keep from fading at all costs. Memories become all you have left, and the very act of reliving them becomes sacred, because for that short span of time it’s as if two lives exist within you. It warms you even from the darkness, but then it fades under the pressures of the living. Nothing in life is permanent - love, pain, even life - sooner or later we all fade, destined to live on as fleeting memories in the minds of others. The collective human consciousness, muddled and imperfect, yet forever intertwining.