Here I am, in the Africana section of the McMillan Memorial Library in Nairobi, Kenya, the place of my birth.  This is where I spent many Saturday mornings as a teenager, and where my love of reading and writing was fostered. This photo was taken in 2023. The library is decrepit, water-stained, moldy, bending at the seams. But it is still widely used as a quiet refuge in the heart of the pulsing city.  While I no longer live in Kenya, my family is still there and I visit every year. But whether I live there or not, Kenya is my backbone, my resilience, the landscape of my heart.