This Here Flesh. Making home.

This here flesh can still recall the fun of yesteryear. I recently joined one of my younger sister friends, for an ill advised, sunny afternoon skate in the park. After a few super shaky turns and one sidesplitting tumble, it all started to come back to me; the old familiar balancing act and memories of 1980’s roll-bounce in denim skirts, with rented skates in familiar NY spaces and places. The bumpy concrete playground, with Bruno Mars, “Skate to Me Baby” playing in the background, was an audio-visual trigger! It’s amazing how place can be conjured in another space. I’m reading “This Here Flesh”, an incredibly moving book of memories and meditations by the soulfully brilliant creator of Black Liturgies, Cole Arthur Riley. She writes, in the chapter entitled “Place”: “It took time for me to accept that where we are has as much to do with our formation as with whom and during what. Place is the one thing that always is. We are always somewhere. I have been without people but never without place. Isn’t it something that in Genesis, God makes a home for things before God makes the thing?” Making home is an act of love, for yourself and your loved ones. May the home you make hold your sacred memories, be a reflection of the hopes and dreams of your ancestors and remind your family and descendants of life’s joys and the beauty of your soul & style.