Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania
Our Memory Banks Play Tricks on Us
Places evoke memories, quality time spent learning and growing. A house where I learned to make vanilla cake with Crisco-based chocolate icing, smoothing each layer with purpose. A space where playing solitaire or games were the focus, not the black and white TV. Each room is purposefully dedicated to an activity–resting, sleeping, bathing, eating, writing or taking a call. The phone room under the stairs became a hide and seek spot more than a communication room for my sister and me.
On Greene Court, in Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania traditions rose to the top, overflowing champagne bubbles leaving a childhood experience akin to the bottle pop. Birthdays were cake focused, summers entrenched in Jersey shore, on holidays we learned to carve meat from my butcher-savvy grandfather as the petrified meat landed on special dishes.
The tiered backyard provided a landscape of my childhood outside of the rituals. I’ll forever love the deep snap of scissors clipping blue hued hydrangeas like the ones my grandfather grew. His garden bed was a work of dirt filled art, dirty and perfectly lit by the afternoon sun. Weeding or pushing the manual blade lawn mower were not chores but playtime learning.
After a long exaggerated stop at a local hospital for imaging, I realized how close I was to my grandparents’ home. I drove straight there from the parking garage. Greene Court, with an ‘e’ added for affect, was a calming spot for me.
It was so much smaller than I recall, all of the personalities so much bigger inside than the walls.
As we look back often when we write resumes, or attempt to create bios, we can see gaps in our work history or recall big missteps or events that lead us in a different direction. Our memories fail us often.
On a fall Wednesday, decades after being in the Green Court house for the last time, I wasn’t tempted to ring the bell, or see who lived there now. Rooted in my body, I stayed in my car, noticing the deep fall sunset raising the terracotta colors, simplifying the edges of a structure that held memories of indulgence and structure.
I just noticed.
I just noticed my love of the house that made safe big memories.
I just noticed how tiny the house looked compared to what I recall.
I just noticed I didn’t want to go back inside.
Like a career we build, sometimes we need to let go of what we thought we wanted or what we thought we needed.
Prompts to recall with a right sided memory
Notice what you still motivates you (the work, not the money)?
Notice what you could never do again and be happy?
Notice where your mind is playing tricks on you–was the boss, job, team, title really all that important?
