MAX RELOAD

  Today during lunch hour I drove down through Papago Park, past The Hole in the Rock,  the National Guard Armory, turning on Oak, then Thomas, finally driving down into my childhood neighborhood.

Everywhere I turned the sights and sounds stirred up memories long forgotten from the weight of 52 years living in this Valley of The Sun, 52 years living.

Landscape is memory and architecture is memory and youth and family and school and church and scouts and baseball all memory crowed together and trapped and freed when needed or when called upon or just seeping forth unbidden.

The blinking radio Towers of South Mountain like the beacons of Gondor calling forth memories like men upon horses. Were those towers always there? In my memories they were and a time when they were not only exists outside my memories and therefore outside of time and outside of being, separated from the me of my existence.

The weight of memory is heavy within my heart this day, weight carried upon my shoulders, of guilt and regret, and mulligans, and do overs. Good memories too, and just plain old memories un-judged, unplugged, swirling around in the synapses waiting to be recalled.  The road led me back down to Amelia Street  to that place where all my memories first sprung, that wet watering hole, the cradle of my youth.

Back then to work, then home to family, my journey to the past complete, I now contemplate upon the weight of the memories I carry with me now, of memories yet to be, and of memories lost or soon to be. What of these memories? I do not know. I'd say I know something of this place I live, this Valley of the Sun, but I'm not sure I know my place in it or what purpose I have served or if I served my purpose well.  Time will tell.

Cheers, nca