The Way Home

I usually take the long way home through the city on Sunday nights. I have a standing meeting there every week, on the western edge of Center City. It's in a church pre-school nursery, with pin-ups of different colors and shapes on bulletin boards and a wall of children's cubby holes filled with diapers and extra clothes and art smocks.

After the meeting, I could hop on the expressway; it would be quicker. But I take Lincoln Drive. It's a curvy, windy road that hugs the river and makes drivers swear at themselves. But on nights like tonight, Lincoln Drive is the right way home. My windows down, moonroof open, music turned up loud enough to drown out my singing, the river on my left, I'm surrounded by green: big old, crazy trees that stretch way up to the sky and blend one right into the other.