Roots

We all have them, roots. We pull them up and move them around, but they want to plant. For me, the soil I have planted in has not been too far removed from the soil my seedling self started in.

This is not where I started, but it's where I have lived from time to time. Minneapolis, where we went Monday evening. Where I went to college, I made the big move across the river, I was so brave! Known as the Mill City, it was an industrial town, using the Mississippi to power the mill stones to grind wheat. Populated by Scandinavians, it is an efficient city, very well designed and easy to navigate.

I liked this photo of Minneapolis at night.

My home town, Saint Paul. Capital city of Minnesota. Saint Paul is not well organized, it's streets meander around aimlessly. Populated by Irish, Italians and French, with a smattering of British, it is a city more like the east. Grand homes along Summit Avenue, neighborhoods that used to be divided by ethnicity. Massive churches and the Cathedral of St. Paul dominate the city. James J. Hill of railroad fame built his mansion on the eastern end of Summit Avenue. St. Paul was the town of wealth and power in the old days and there are lots of monuments to money that are standing there. Minnesota has a tradition in the arts and much of that tradition stemmed from all that old St. Paul money.

St. Paul is the smaller of the two cities. It hardly seems to matter, they are called the Twin Cities because one is directly across the river from the other, so it really is one large metropolitan area. But each holds jealously to its own identity. I am partial to my place of birth and the city I grew up in. I will forever consider myself from Saint Paul.

This is the small town that is my mailing address. Watertown, MN. I live 25 miles west of Minneapolis, so I did not pull my roots up to transplant too far from my origin. I rarely go to Watertown because although it is my address, the town of Mound is closer, to the east as opposed to the west. I guess I am ever drawn back to the east and 'home'.

I can't seem to be too far from a river though. This is not the Mississippi, but it will do. The Crow River runs right through the town.
There was a time I would never have thought I would be here, but people change, at least this one did, and here I am. And if the fates are willing, here I'll stay.