Place Keeping

I mulled this thought over and over one night. Awoke from a sound sleep to this idea: we keep a sense of time in our brain. How does this compare to keeping a sense of place? Does it even exist?

I concluded we do have a place keeping mechanism. Each of us. How does this work?

I moved to various locations in my early life. Dad was a defense engineer on many Navy projects. He first worked in southern California. A lot of work with Cal Tech, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and several Navy bases. He worked with civilian contractors and corporations in that line of work, eventually moving from Naval Civil Service to private corporate employment. We lived in three homes in California. Altadena (a suburb of Pasadena) at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. Then Inyokern in the center of the Mojave Desert, back to Altadena (same house), then to a new home in Glendora. While living there in the first 6 months, Dad took a job in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Then transferred to Syracuse, New York. He went on to several more sites, but I had already left home for college in Illinois. After graduation, I stayed in Illinois and have lived in this region for nearly 60 years.

Unlike my youth, I have lived in 7 different homes all in Chicagoland. My brother stayed in New York. My sister remained in California and then Arizona. We siblings preferred staying put compared with our childhood wanderings.

Each of those places have meaning for me. Especially New England. That was a time of maturing, of change. So much of that experience is tied to that place, hence place keeping. Yes, those years were confined to a single time, so it can be argued that is an example of time keeping. But my memory serves up place images, not times. The grit of place is very real, not the same as time. Nor year.

In this way I recall the details of living in the place. The people, activities, landscapes, special events and features of the place. These details are very much a part of who I am at this time of my life. I now realize this has been true for all my life.

I remember oranges being connected to Glendora, California. Why? Because we lived in a new tract of housing that was built in an orange and lemon grove. We had a mature orange tree in our backyard and two lemon trees. We could walk down the alleys of trees in the remaining grove, pick ripe fruit from the trees, puncture the rind and drink deeply of fresh juice. We took refuge from the sun sitting in the tree’s shade. It was quiet and aromatic. And the juice was refreshing and delicious. Tangy. Sweet. A full range of citrus flavors. That memory pops up every time I think about orange juice and its goodness. I was a kid then, experiencing new things and new places. It was the place that marks the memory rather than time.

Music and a full range of the arts is place kept in Massachusetts, the Berkshire Hills. A memorable time of life, a memorable place of life.

Do you organize your memory in a similar manner? Or is this unique to me? I doubt the latter.

June 17, 2024

 

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