I have a photo from my 3rd birthday of me sitting on my bed. It’s just a simple moment, nothing extraordinary. But it was tucked into a photo album that I had looked at many times throughout my childhood. The interesting thing to me is this photo holds so much more than what you can actually see …and I’ll bet you have photos like this too.

I can remember everything in the moments surrounding that photograph. It’s like stepping back into time. I remember my little canopy bed with pink ruffles and a quilted bedspread that matched… the way it felt slightly cold to the touch and the stitching was a little rough, but I loved it because I felt like a princess in my pink bed. That day, my parents walked in with a present wrapped in yellow paper with odd little characters on it.  I remember feeling like the most special person in the world.

My dad sat down on the bed beside me as I opened my gift. My mom stood in the doorway, smiling, and watching us. I ripped open the gift (with help) and pulled out a khaki one-piece shorts outfit with a belt and buttons.  My toddler imagination saw a safari suit and it instantly became my favorite thing. I remember my dad and me sitting on the bed for a little while after…just playing and talking.

It’s funny how the memories attached to that photo have become the treasure. The photo is a simple moment but within it is everything I felt. When I say there is magic in a printed photo… this is what I mean. When I see that photograph I remember SO much more than what the photograph reveals. There is something about this that has always fascinated me. I’ve wondered why I can recall so much detail from this specific morning but nothing from the rest of the day. So I recently did a little research into the psychology and neuroscience of memory, and what I found is truly… magical.

Apparently our minds create networks of memory by linking together everything we experience in a moment… what we see, hear, feel, and smell. During a special moment, our brain weaves together all the sensory details and emotions we’re experiencing into one complete picture. This complete picture is a memory network, where each sense is tied to the others, so that later, a single detail, like a photo of me sitting on a bed, can reconnect us to the entire experience.

Research also shows that the more emotionally charged the moment the deeper it imprints in our minds… creating a more vivid memory.

Even though this is just a simple photo of a simple moment… it holds so much life in it. This image triggers the network of feelings and senses surrounding that moment…  keeping that memory alive.  Did I feel loved and safe often… of course! But the memories I have, the ones I can relive, are the ones that have a photograph attached in some way.

Isn’t that wild?! We take so many more pictures these days, most of them sit on our hard drives or in a cloud somewhere just to be forgotten. But the really special ones… the ones that are printed in an album or hung on the wall… the ones that our kiddos will see often and remember… those are the ones that will hold the stories. Those are the ones that hold the magic.