City on the Lake

She had spent large portions of her life moving from one place to another, never feeling like she was home. In those places she did not call home she had a good life but something always seemed to be missing. So when she returned from a stay over seas and settled in a city where for once her parents and siblings all lived she felt maybe this would be home. But over the next five years they all left. Left her in this dirty, sad and broken city that was slowly falling apart at the seams. Her family was gone and she had no boyfriend and only a few friends and a job she loathed so what was keeping her tied to this city? Nothing. She packed her bags and moved to the gleaming city by the lake and on that very first day in her new city she felt as if she was coming home. Something in the air and on the wind made the strings of her heart strum for this city. She felt it deep in her bones. She had no real connection to this city, other then brief visits for fun and work and a glimmer of past knowledge of her grandmother’s youth here. It was not until she discovered the manuscript buried in a filing cabinet drawer in her parents garage. When she read the history of her grandmother’s family and learned that they had chosen to build their hotel, before the turn of the century, in that gleaming city on the lake she felt her heart strings strum again. She read of the hotel and her great grandmother, she read about her thirteen year old grandmother taking the train downtown, she read about the city her family had loved and she knew without a doubt that she was home. Home in a city that had everything, museums, shops, theaters, comedy, friends and lovers. But most importantly roots. Her roots.