My most sharp and primary memory is from the last year of poliomyelitis without vaccine in 1955 when I was three years old. I can remember the painted trees and closed houses. It was a very sad winter with street without children and empty schools. The following year Sabin created the vaccine and children were saved from a horrible future.

Its music and food! I remember my past and memories associated mostly through the music, great food, and moments in them.

Scent colors my world more than sight, but it always leads to images of what I recollect. I remember the smell of spent jet fuel and burning buildings on 9/11 and thinking that the stench was like the odor of tarmac mixed with I imagined a crematorium would smell like. On a lighter note, the smell of peppermint conjures images of my aunt's garden and makes me notice what is green around me. I prefer the latter memories . . .

President John F Kennedy. The day the world changed. Here in Barbados, I remember it as a child in primary school. That particular day the rain fell more and heavier than I could ever remember, I thought there was a storm coming. Parents came for children at school in long raincoats and boots. It was only when I reached home, I heard over the radio that then President had been assassinated. That day the sun went behind the clouds, and a darkness loomed over little Barbados. Whenever there is a storm or hurricane heading our way, that special day always comes to my memory.

When I see the full moon in a place without public lighting, I have this nostalgic feeling of childhood and innocence and harmlessness.

So many different events.... I remember them as a chronological series of images like a long filing cabinet, each memory has its own folder. Some are still images, some contain motion, some both.

When I hear certain sounds (city, nature, music, voices) my memory provides a vivid movie replaying the connected event or moment: Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs" — riding my 1971 turquoise glittery, neon floral banana seat, sissy bar Schwinn in front of my suburban home on a hot/muggy summer Chicago day in white party sandals I wasn't supposed to be wearing out to play; trolley dings and sirens - business trips to San Francisco in my 20s when life was zesty with unknown adventure around every corner, possessing that youthful confidence that I knew exactly what I was doing in my professional apparel with my hair perfectly done; the crack of a metal baseball bat - all the dry dusty years of watching little-league games in the hot Arizona summers not realizing the people I was meeting would be cherished for the rest of my life and consuming enormous amounts bottled water and chomping on ice to stay cool; the drip & swish of water - paddling the rivers and lakes of the pacific northwest relishing in the cradling sense of being cocooned in my kayak taking in the crisp, moist air and feeling joyously unfettered.

I remember the past very differently from the world that I'm experiencing right now. I remember that being Venezuelan was something to be proud of everywhere me and my family traveled around the world—politics has changed us, it has made us weak. I remember New York, I remember September 11...it changed everything...on the other hand I remember that as humans we never thought that time would ask us to slow down, we always thought that we where making the right decisions for us and others. Now we want to go back on time and change the world that we have made for ourselves.

The week of 9-11-2001 a newborn infant boy was found thrown away, wrapped in plastic bags along the side of a road near our home. I arrived right after the police. It felt like all of the loss in New York was amplified by the savage murder of a single child. When I see the lights in New York that signify the towers and lives lost I immediately remember the legs of a police officer standing over that small body, lit just by flashlights and headlights. The events were so different but the shock, disbelief, and overwhelming sadness were the same.

Sidney Crosby scoring the overtime goal to win the Canadian Olympic hockey gold... The Vancouver streets were absolutely jammed with celebrating people; they were climbing the street lamps and bus shelters, hanging from buildings. There were Canadian flags waving everywhere.

When Princess Diana was killed. I was at home with my first child, I put the TV on walked out of the room and my consciousness just heard it! Disbelief really, the enormous emotion of people, and the thought of her meaning so much to vast groups of diverse people.

Aside from 9/11, I remember the moment that the 2nd Iraq war began. I was at work and one of the parents (I was a gymnastics coach) told me that the President was expected to announce that we were going to war. A bunch of us watched the President's speech huddled around a small TV in the lobby. I remember feeling like it was a dream, I knew that this war would change everything, but I couldn't have predicted that we'd still be at war, almost 5 years later.

A man of peace, John Lennon, being gunned down.