On Saturday evening the voice of Siri guided me through familiar territory as I drove over streets slicked by a mixture of dirt and precipitation. A fine mist coated my windshield making it difficult to drive. The route brought back dozens of memories as I traveled along the 610 Loop and exited at Long Drive and South Wayside. The synapses in my brain were popping with remembered stories as I drove across Griggs Road into Pine Valley, a neighborhood that had briefly been my home. I breezed past Telephone Road and looked to the right at the area where my first apartment had once stood. On down South Wayside I recalled visits to a school where I observed teachers as part of my college degree plan. A slight curve changed the road to 69th Street and I thought of shopping on Harrisburg Boulevard and long remembered trips for ice cream after visits to my grandmother’s house. I continued on past Canal Street and Navigation where I longed to make a left turn so that I might once again be at Grandma Ulrich’s home where my aunts and uncles and cousins would be gathered or should I say compressed inside a tiny space filled with so much love. Finally I turned onto Avenue R and rolled past a row of houses so much like the one that had protected my mother’s immigrant family as she and her seven siblings grew into adults. My journey that night was like a microcosm of my family history compressed into a half hour memoir. As I turned into the parking lot of Templo Bethel, my destination, I felt a spiritual kinship with the young man that I had come to honor. Continue reading “Architecture of God”
All It Takes Is A Little Love 