I've been wondering lately. Wondering if my mind works like everyone else's mind, or if I am alone in my experiences. It's not that I think people don't understand me, or don't feel the same emotions as me. No, no. It's not that deep! It's that I wonder how people see the world on a daily basis. What is another person's perspective truly like? How do they conjure memories, or do their memories conjure themselves? Let me explain:
On any given day, I have what I would call "mini flashes of memory." They are fleeting thoughts of times gone by. Pictures that seem to appear behind my eyes so fast that I barely have time to register what the content is before they leave. Sometimes it's not a picture at all, sometimes I remember a sound or a smell, or just an emotion. There's no real reason to it, or so it seems. Sometimes these memories have relevance to my current situation. If I am talking about someone, I may remember something he or she did, for example. But more often than not, these
clips, if you will, have nothing to do with anything at all. They are instantaneous reminders of my history, in random order, playing like a slide show in my brain.
The points in time that take up the most space are times from my early childhood with my grandmothers, both of them - my real father's mother, and my mother's mother - my college years, and my time working with Allegheny East, the day program for adults with MR. Sometimes when I look at Jacob, I will flash back to his infancy and toddlerhood too. My best guess is that these are the times that have made the biggest impression on my life so far. They are the most meaningful and influential. I can be driving, or washing dishes, bathing the kids or talking a walk, and little bits of information pass through me. It goes something like this:
I remember eating icicles outside of my Grandma Helen's house, and making forts behind the green chair in her dining room. I remember her digging through her change purse to give me money to go to the penny candy store, and buying snow cones from the truck on her street. I remember laying in bed with her at night watching "The Honeymooners." She would reach over, pat me and say, "are you all right, doll baby?" There was always Chloroseptic spray on her night stand. I see her glow-in-the-dark rosary beads hanging from the bedpost in the middle bedroom. She made the best pork chops and mashed potatoes, back when I ate pork chops. I remember laying on the couch with my Grandma Jackie while she watched Oprah in the afternoons, and sitting up at night looking out the living room window with her, watching the headlights of cars driving down the mountain across the small valley. I remember her telling me I swam like a fish, and feeling so proud of my skills. I see her fumbling through her purse at Hess's looking for her charge card, or waiting in the car while I got her money from the ATM machine. I used to lay in bed with my Grandma Jackie too, and she would listen to Sally Jesse Raphael on talk radio and do arm exercises until it was time to go to sleep. I remember being shocked when I finally saw Sally Jesse on TV. She had huge red glasses and was nothing like I pictured her to be! I see a blue yarn doll that my sisters and I made for Gram while she was dying, pinned to the curtains in her middle bedroom. I remember watching her sleep on the couch that summer, standing still as could be, staring, wondering if she was still breathing. I smell the lilacs outside the window, the chlorine from the pool, feel the cool of the linoleum in the breezeway on a hot summer day, and picture the pool toys and accessories hung along the walls.
I see Shelly, Sabrina and I standing in the middle of a cemetery in Paris, exhausted from searching for Jim Morrison's grave. I see women in windows in the red-light district of Amsterdam, and remember my shock and naivety. I see Michelle, Molly and I sitting in our freshman door room while the rest of the crew went out drinking, and then the three of us, two years later, jumping a fence to go skinny dipping! I see Danielle sitting on her bed the day she told me she was a lesbian. I remember walking up Brooks walk to go to the post office, or going to McKinley's or Shultz for dinner. I remember the sound of Pete's truck as he pulled into Hueling's parking lot. I remember fighting with Sabrina about whether it was a "vacuum" or a "sweeper." (I now call it a vacuum. She would be so proud!) I remember calling Linda in the middle of the night and asking to come over, after a particularly bad evening, sitting on her couch with a glass of wine and a cigarette. I remember making snow angels outside the German House...in my underwear, putting a fabric rocking chair outside of the German house with a sign that said "free" after discovering that it was infested with some kind of bugs, only to find it taken, and then discarded on the neighbor's steps later on. Guess whoever thought a free chair was a good deal, realized that a bug infested chair is not a good deal, free or not! I remember carrying my cat, Zielia, inside the front of my coat on winter days. She was so tiny then, just her head stuck out over my zipper. I remember sitting outside the steps of Alden Hall with Kathleen during spring fest. We had been drinking for quite some time when Kathleen's goody-two-shoes roommate came along. Kathleen wanted me to act sober, which I was never very good at. I kept laughing and laughing, poking Kathleen and saying, "Hey, we're like Saturday night live." It was a reference to a skit that we had seen together. She shushed me, but it didn't work. I was too drunk to care! It still makes me smile, just remembering it. I remember sitting outside at Woodcock, with friends and alone, in the sun. I remember the Chinese restaurant, The "Cheese" Garden, and the Penny Bar, parties at the Sigs and the Delts, the Spanish House, house sitting for Prof. Richter and inviting a few friends to enjoy his jacuzzi with me! College memories go on forever.
Then there's my time in Pittsburgh. I remember driving along the back roads between Penn Hills, Verona and Monroeville. Sometimes the pictures are of me alone, sometimes I picture myself either driving the big brown van, or riding in it. Yes, it's the one that I literally ran into Mellon Bank, tearing down the overhang at the drive-through and ripping apart the roof of the bus, with twelve passengers waiting wide-eyed and silent...except for one, who continually said, "Koelle, you're going to lose your license. This is gonna cost you eighty bucks, and yep, you're gonna lose your license." That's another memory that plays in my mental slide-show. I recently thought of how one client cracked his eggs - he would crack it and then throw the whole thing, shell and all, into the bowl in a loose act of cooking defiance. I picture D pointing at K, who is flipping through her Sears catalog. K would yell at D to stop, and then yell at me to tell him to stop. This happened every day! I can also hear K saying, "shut your ****ing face" to many, many people, and secretly wishing I could say the same thing! I remember swinging at the playground with L and singing "Oh Happy Day," and grabbing M under the arm before a seizure started. I remember how R would laugh and laugh at anything that made noise, even the rustling leaves in a good wind storm. I remember ordering vegetarian subs from Car Hops, and taking the guys swimming at North Park when A had a bowel accident in the pool (he had eaten corn.) I remember taking them bowling and to Giant Eagle, yelling at Marsha the day she was walking with B and his pants fell down and she didn't realize it. Or the time that R followed some man into the restroom and tried to steal the man's coffee. I was helpless, standing outside the men's room, calling in to for him to come out, while the man said, "Hey, hey! What's a matter with you?" I knew R. was rubbing the guy's back as he stood at the urinal. The man didn't know that R only wanted a drink! I remember standing in the conference room as Marsha held both of my hands when I told her I was pregnant the first time. I don't remember what she said, just the look on her face. It was as if she knew that pregnancy would not come to term. I remember her later having a big shower for me at the center when I had Jacob, She had my mom make a quilt for him, which everyone signed. Then she came back to my house to look through all of the things I got, even though I knew she was terribly busy. I needed the company and she was there.
There is one particular image I have of Greg, from when we first started dating. He was crouched beside his boat in the driveway of his house on Lower Brush Mountain Road and he glanced up at me and smiled. I remember being struck by how handsome he was and how the kindness in his demeanor shone through in his eyes. I still feel that way about him. I think of the ease with which he taught me how to throw horse shoes at his family reunion, two weeks into our relationship. Who would expect horseshoes to be sensuous? I remember him trying to be slick and show me that he could drive through the turnpike stall and grab a ticket without coming to a full stop. He missed and had to back up!
These and many other memories float through my mind all the time. It's not that I am consumed with the past. They are momentary, fleeting, simple reminders of days gone by and people I love. I wonder if that's strange, to have these memory clips. Sometimes they are a reminder of my losses, but most days I view them as a blessing, little reminders of all the good times I have had and good people I have been blessed with.
Does anyone else experience anything like this? I'm curious...
