From my balcony I watched a major storm front move through in a tight ring north and east of Valpo. Above me dark blue sky, and around thick, dangerous looking clouds of layers showing white, gray, and black. The layers hid magnificent bursts of lightning. Strikes light the clouds and a few peaked occasionally through the passing cloud cover. I sat and stared and felt in the midst of another weather spectacular.

Today I completely lost myself in a Target store. I stopped to look at a few things and began looking at DVD's on sale, and for the briefest seconds I forgot about everything else in the world besides the moment I had looking at the racks of movies. Everything vanished and when I walked out it hit me that I was right here, at home, and not off on some other adventure. I'm beginning to believe that one does not have roots in a place, a house, a town, an area; rather, one has roots in people and there is where we plant ourselves, become nurtured or neglected, and establish foundations and grow or wither. I hear friends say that they are or are not ready to lay down roots in a particular place. Roots, meant to connect ourselves to something else, are in people. Oh, some lucky ones sink themselves into the soil around them. I don't have the dirt of Orland Park under my nails or the smell of Indiana under my nose. My roots are wherever my friends and family keep me real and live in their inner selves. We are all legacies onto each other.