To the Lighthouse

How can a public place can be so personal?

How can I be so attached to a place I don’t own,  maintain, nor have a say in its very existence? Such as the pier and lighthouse at Loyola Beach? That place is a touchstone in my life, a spot where I feel I meet myself and can think about who I am now and who I used to be all those times when I visited before.

I haven’t been there in a while, and I miss it. Many a morning, when I used to drive my boys to school from one end of Chicago to the other,...