Taylor Swift august Pacific44 coastal session artwork

Sunday Sessions: Taylor Swift — august

The Long Pond performance, and the memories a song brought back for Angie and me.

6 min read

Open the full Sunday Session — player, story and collection ↗

Angie and I were having coffee when Taylor Swift’s “august” came on. We both stopped. A song we hadn’t grown up with had somehow taken us straight back to a part of our lives we knew very well.

For me, it brought back Waterloo, Iowa. Angie’s mother’s yellow car. Crossroads Mall. Those stolen moments when we were young and trying to find time together.

The recording arrived much later than the memories. It still found them. That is a remarkable thing about a song: it can describe a feeling closely enough that your own people and places begin to fill the space around it.

An earlier version of us

Angie and I were high school sweethearts. When I think about those years, I remember the importance of time together—the way a small opportunity to see each other could take up so much of your attention.

You don’t need a grand occasion when you’re young. A car ride, a place to meet or a few moments you managed to find can feel like the whole afternoon. You are still learning what you want, still figuring out who you are, and feeling everything with an intensity that is difficult to explain years later.

“august” brought some of that back to us over coffee. We weren’t trying to recreate every detail. We simply recognized a feeling. The yellow car and Crossroads Mall were there again, along with the younger versions of ourselves.

I like those moments with Angie. We have our own memories of the same years. A song can bring them into the room without either of us planning to talk about them.

A song we hadn’t grown up with had somehow taken us straight back to a part of our lives we knew very well.

The memory belongs to us

I don’t hear “august” as a literal account of our relationship. A song has its own characters and its own story. What reached Angie and me was the feeling inside it: wanting a little more time, noticing how quickly a season moves and holding on to moments that seemed small to everyone else.

That distinction is part of what makes music so personal. Two people can hear the same recording and bring entirely different lives to it. For us, a song released decades after high school found the yellow car, the mall and the anticipation of seeing each other again. It didn’t need to name Waterloo to take us there.

Remembering together also gives us something a photograph can’t always provide. We get to hear what the other person kept. The place I remember most clearly might be different from the part Angie returns to. Even in a story we share, there is still something to learn about each other.

I want to keep making time for those conversations. We can sit across from someone we love for years and assume we know every story. Then a song comes on, one of us smiles, and a door opens into a memory we haven’t visited together in a long time.

What time adds to a song

There is a different perspective available to us now. We know more about how life unfolds than we did as teenagers. We know what it means to build a career, take care of a family, start over and keep going when plans change.

Angie is now my partner in doing life together. Hearing a recording that brings back an earlier chapter has a particular sweetness because we can look across the table and share it in the present.

The memories are ours. The life we are making now is ours too. I’m grateful that both can exist in the same ordinary morning.

That is a theme I keep coming back to at Pacific44. We carry earlier versions of ourselves into this part of life. We don’t have to put those years away in order to enjoy what comes next. Sometimes remembering them makes the current chapter richer.

And there is still more to experience together. A new place to visit. An artist to hear live. A weekend that doesn’t have to be extraordinary to become something we’re glad we made time for.

The Long Pond performance

I wanted the Long Pond performance here because the setting gives us a chance to spend time with the song. You can watch the musicians, listen to the phrasing and let the performance have your attention for a few minutes.

The player stays beside the story on desktop. Press play while you read, or take a break and watch. Sunday Sounds & Smiles is meant to leave room for both.

My connection to “august” comes from what it brought back for Angie and me. Your connection may be completely different. That is part of why I enjoy sharing these recordings. A song can lead one person to a teenage summer and another to something much more recent.

It can also become a memory we haven’t made yet. Perhaps someone you care about will hear it with you today, and the next time it comes on you’ll think about this Sunday.

Still listening, still making memories

There is something hopeful about a newer song becoming important to us. It means our soundtrack is still growing. We can love the music that raised us and remain open to an artist who reaches us at a different age.

That is the spirit I want behind Sunday Sounds & Smiles. Some weeks we’ll return to a recording that has been with us for forty years. Other weeks, a song will be new to someone reading. The invitation stays simple: spend a little time with it and see what it brings into the room.

I’m building this part of Pacific44 because I want a home for that kind of attention. The film gives you somewhere to settle in. The performance gives you the whole song. The story gives you a little of the life behind my choice. I hope there is enough room left for your own memories too.

The songs that become ours

Some of the music I share here has followed me since the 1980s. Some has found me much later. “august” reminds me to keep listening across those lines. A newer recording can understand an older feeling.

I’m glad we happened to hear it that morning. I’m glad we had the time to stop and let the memories come. Those are the kinds of moments I want this project to make room for: familiar people, a good song and a little attention to the life we’re already living.

If you’re listening with someone today, ask where the song takes them. There might be a story you know by heart. There might be one you haven’t heard yet.

For Angie and me, it took us back to Waterloo. Then we got to return to the table, together, and enjoy the coffee.