I roll over in my mind what to caption this photo with, what words I can use best to conjure the same feelings while taking it.

It was a side trip to Cancun on my way to Mexico City. The crush I had at the time suggested we spent some time alone in a vacation town before meeting her family in Metapec, a great idea indeed.

Along our trip, we took a local boat tour from the northern, local dock to Isla Mujeres, the Island of Women. This shot was taken along the short yet memorable boat ride back from our short yet memorable excursion.

A young boy settled in on the bow, knees pulled against his chest, eyes peering out over the side, a rope tied to a plastic buoy, loose tentacles strung around it. I turn back to the boy, and his gaze strikes me, like deja vu, of when I was his age.

I would peer out over the front and sides of my best friend’s family down, into the Indian Ocean, breathing in the salt air and feeling the sprayed water sprinkle my face.

I remember my first surfboard, the same salt air licking my face, a photo taken as the wind tried to pull the board from my tiny arms.

Memories of living in Oman, early morning surf trips with my dad and brother, falling asleep in the backseat as we would drive along the coast, and the smell of the ocean, like a fragrance of my youth, come flooding back.

A photo that unlocks a memory of a memory, a curious thing the mind is.

Through a camera lens, I see the world slow down, a heartbeat’s measure passing by. In those moments, my left eye straining to stay closed, my right eye viewing a world in stillness.

If I had not chosen to take this picture, and surrounding others, I would not be able to, as I am now, transport myself back to its time.

Photography is the great key that unlocks a world of memory, thus giving us the rare chance to live again within that world.

It is rare and it is a gift, just as was this moment, a young boy peering out into the open blue expanse, a crush beside me, locals speaking Spanish all around me, laughing, swaying, and the lens of a camera to take it all in.