Before we moved back to Brooklyn last October, we combed through our CD collection for sellable rejects. With the proceeds, we bought the DVDs for Freaks and Geeks. Clearly a trade-up.

The first week in our new home, without cable or internet, without anywhere cozy to sit, with too many boxes to unpack, this is what we did: we lay on an inflatable bed and watched Freaks and Geeks on a laptop. (We had already seen the whole series - this was round two).

We watched the entire season except for the finale. I suppose we simply got busy. The cable was installed, new jobs demanded our time, evenings were spent reconnecting with friends or unpacking.

Last week, we finally watched that last episode.

Watching Lindsay Weir discover the Grateful Dead, ditch the academic summit and climb in that bus to follow the Dead, I remembered with sweet nostalgia how it felt to be young, impressionable, open-minded and open-hearted. That feeling of freedom, weightlessness, excitement and awe that overcomes you when you pull onto the highway on your first road trip.

I flirted with Dead Headedness during a high school summer spent in the Colorado mountains, but I could never really get into it. I'm not much of a joiner. Though I wore shirts I had tie dyed myself and stopped brushing my hair for awhile, the dedication of neo-hippies repelled me toward their opposite. That summer, I saw Sonic Youth instead of the Grateful Dead.

But today I'm listening to the Grateful Dead's American Beauty. Maybe the mellow harmonies with help me recapture a little of that youthful optimism.

This is a story about an old red-headed girl that was trying to steal my husband... - Dolly Parton

A few years ago, I wrote a song called "Susan, I'm Sorry," and it went like this:

Susan, I'm sorry / that your man fell in love with me.
I'm just a girl, you see, / with pretty eyes and a pedigree.

It's a goofy country ditty. I never finished it. It was about being the other woman, only in this case, the other woman and the philandering man fell in love and found happiness. All very sweet and warm-hearted.

When Jolene shuffled on my iPod yesterday, I remembered my song. It's kind of Jolene's response, were Jolene a self-centered yet sincere privileged little brat rather than a vicious man-stealing harpy.

Yesterday, I was alphabetizing thousands of dusty 45s. Some had gorgeous, shiny picture sleeves - a young and dashing Johnny Cash, Heart in their big-haired, shoulder-padded 80's splendor. Most looked like they were well-loved in their heyday. They had been slotted into jukeboxes, stacked next to stereos, crammed in bookshelves or crates, occasionally used as coasters or Frisbees. And yet, here they were decades later, getting organized, alphabetized.

When dealing with that volume, there are, of course, a few stand-outs.

I was caught off-guard by my reaction to finding Sting's Fortress Around Your Heart in the pile. I read the label, went to file it under 'S', and felt that surge of emotional memory. I was ten years old, inconsolably sad, and that song was on the radio.

Fortress Around Your Heart was released in 1985. My parents divorced that year. I was, in fact, ten.

Later, I was thinking about this musical trigger. Why do certain songs become linked to very specific emotional experiences? I never particularly liked Sting. As a ten year old, I think I was a little confused by this image of building a castle around someone's heart. I pictured Legos. Why this song and not Phil Collins' 1985 release Sussudio, which I also filed yesterday, under 'C'?

I told my husband about my unexpected emotional reaction to a Sting 45, and he shared a similar story. For him, it's Journey's Open Arms, and it also involves divorce.

I followed up with one more, also from 1985: Stevie Wonder's Part Time Lover always reminds me of Children of the Corn. I think I heard it while riding in the backseat of the gold Crown Victoria, returning the video rental, which I turned off midway through, because Malachai was far too scary for a ten year old.

That song still makes me feel scared and a little fragile.