Memories of a Place
The place I want to describe is a place that was part of me while I was growing up.It seems like it has been more than two decades since I was walking in those hallways. Going back to those memories, I think time went so fast when I was there that I wish I could have extra time to do more. The other day, I saw in Facebook a BBC Mundo publication about time that I found interesting. It explained why time and memories give us that sense of going faster when we are grown-ups than when we are kids. Interestingly, the explanation about this goes around the idea that once our life becomes more steady, and we establish daily routines, our brain is not demanding lots of energy or effort to deal with them. Therefore, our cognitive process go faster, and does time. Moreover, memories, which is another way how we perceive time, give us a feeling that those moments that we are bringing back happened a very long time ago, but the reality is that our brain stores those events depending of the amounts of new things that we did, so more things done, more space seems between present and past.
In my case, the memories that I have of my high school in Colombia are the best time thatI can recall and even better than my college years. People don’t lie when they say that time flies when you are having fun. However, I had to travel 15 years back in my head to bring not only the picture of this special place, but feelings, textures, odors and colors linked to it, and suddenly I was surrounded by a happiness that I wasn’t expecting. My high school or “colegio”, which is how we say it in Spanish, taught me valuable lessons in my life that have stuck with me since them.
This place was located (they moved once I graduated) in the rural side of my city. There were few buildings around, and those built before set the rule of not going higher than one floor, so my high school had the same infrastructure. The reason why there were not high buildings back then was because it would have interfered with the view of the hills that were part of the landscape. It was a countryside school. I loved it! My high school was enclosed by a natural grass fence that went around the whole campus; instead of bricks or wood the directors decided to blend it with the background. Once the fence was passed, there were a river path with flowers, rocks and this little bridge that divided the administration offices from the classrooms. The first impression that you had about this place was a sense of freedom and expansion.
This feeling of liberty fit perfectly with the number of students that my high school had. It was small school with a lot space to cover, so every day I had the task to discover, run, walk and play in every inch of it, and let me tell you, I succeeded in my mission. Also, it had two soccer fields, and one basketball court (all three outdoors because we don’t have seasons) where the biggest sport battles were played with the older grades in the recess or in more serious competitions. It was in this part of my high school where I learned that sports are the healthy way to push yourself to be better than others, and it can be very fun. Besides, it was there where I discovered how the wet grass feels during a soccer and kickball game in the rain, and of course, what it feels to lose my voice after cheering for my team the whole morning. I have to accept that these memories make me feel nostalgic.
It is not an accident that I haven’t talked about the classrooms yet. Though classrooms are the safest environment to learn and nurture the student’s minds, I believe that out of the books, where the interaction with others occurs, is where the real meaning of life resides. However, the classrooms of my high school were designed (that’s what I like to think) to let the students connect with the environment while they were learning. They had a big space or window in one of the walls that didn’t have glass or fence or anything that obstructed the view. It was amazing how I could be reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature, and then turned my look and saw Renzo, the school’s dog, playing with other students, the sun shining, or the maintenance guy giving away the mangos that he got from the mango tree. Oh, I loved those mango trees! I used to eat them for breakfast and lunch in any presentation: cut, peeled, or with skin.
Mangos trees played a big role in my high school’s years and created a bond with my bestfriends. My friends and I were always in the mission of getting those mangos from the trees without being noticed; if we took the mangos from the tree in the wrong time, out of the season, we were threatened the next crop. So, our principal always warned us about that, but of course, we were thirsty for this wonderful fruit, and this was the only thing that mattered. Cleverly, I counted with the perfect team for all this “mango missions”; I was the thinker, the one who said, “I have an idea!” which usually turned in breaking the school’s rules, like getting mangos in the wrong time. Sandra was the pusher, if I hesitated she would have said, “go Maria, that is nothing, nobody is watching us” and Carolina was the neutral, for her everything or nothing was the same, so she always ended up following our steps and getting our backs. Truly, these adventures wouldn’t have been the same without my two musketeers. They were and still are my allies and accomplices in life.
Remember that I told you about the river path dividing my school, well there were one time when that river was in front of my classroom, and something that I enjoyed most during those years was to sit down close to the water and put my bare feet in. The sensation of cold water never bothered me because usually my city had temperatures close to summer time, so it was a way to cool myself down. There is a particular sound associated with this moment that I only can relate here with the sound of the waves at the beach; this sound was made by the rocks piled up in the path, creating these little waves all the way down and the sound mixed with the laughter and voices of the kids that were around. It is a perfect moment of my childhood stored in my heart.
If you ask me for a color that could describe this memory of my place, I will tell you green. If you ask me for a smell that reminds me my school, I will tell you that it is mango. If you want me to tell you about the people that it was around this place, I will tell you that they were the most kind, patient, faithful people that I have ever known, who helped to build who I am and gave me the best moments in my life. Finally, if you ask me what this place represents in my life, I will tell you that it is my second home where I made lifelong friends, connected with the nature and started my journey in life.
