The story of a city, like the story of a life, cannot be found because you look for it. It has to find you. You stand still long enough, eventually it walks by. And it speaks. What that city says to you will depend on what you are listening for.

At a very young age McKinlee Prince-Jeffries had difficulty with her schoolwork. Her mother believed there was a medical explanation, but all the doctor’s evaluations came back finding nothing.  At one point a private school administrator told McKinlee’s mother, maybe she should face the reality that McKinlee was simply unfit for “regular” school.

But her mother knew this wasn’t true. She followed her motherly instinct and went to yet another physician for an evaluation.

She said when they entered this doctor’s office he took one look at McKinlee and said he knew the problem. Tests soon revealed he was correct: McKinlee was diagnosed with a unique form of epilepsy.

Her problem all those years wasn’t a lack of intelligence or capability. Her seeming inattentiveness in class was probably the result of micro seizures. McKinlee was put on medication and she immediately blossomed.

McKinlee speaks for her city Nashville when she says in a poem…