I’ve always struggled to remember things. It’s hard for me to recall the names of people from my past and the specific details of stories. But I remember moods and sensations—like how someone smelled or the color of the sky during a late-night conversation with a friend, but mostly, I remember the music. For me, music is memory. Or maybe it’s not so much memory but how I craft a story around a memory. They aren’t true recollections but loosely constructed narratives filled with feelings, colors, and sounds orchestrated by the song of that moment. I remember one hot summer day, driving along the freeway with my high school best friend in her “silver bullet,” all the windows rolled down, smoking endless cigarettes while passionately singing “Fly Like an Eagle” by the Steve Miller Band. The lyric “time keeps on slipping into the future” had little meaning to me at 17, but now at 40, I wish I could pause time and linger on those carefree moments a little longer. I remember laying in my friend’s room as the rain pelted down on his window, my eyes gently closed, while he played Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” on his guitar. And traveling to NYC with my 8th-grade drama class (without my parents!), riding on a bus late at night, staring out the window while listening to the Fugee's version of “Killing Me Softy” over and over again on my Walkman, anticipating my big city adventures, wondering if I was about to begin a new exciting chapter of my life. There are parts to these memories that are accurate, but most of what I remember has been distorted by time. It’s the songs that stay true. This is a long-winded way to say that I loved “Stay True,” a beautifully written coming-of-age memoir by Hua Hsu. There are so many things I wanted to say about this book and the connection I feel with @huahsu (growing up in the Bay Area, ‘90s alternative music culture, mixtapes, eBay, thinking that being an outsider makes you better than other people when usually you’re just as basic and cliché as everyone else, Björk, zines, weird ephemera, friendship and identity, how tragedy influences memory, etc.!), but I’ve already gone on way too long. Read it! 🧡