belonging

Where are you from? they ask. And I reply, gently, I am from here. From this earth. Fed by this water and warmed by this sun. I have knelt on these rocks, picked fruit from these plants, sheltered under these trees. I sleep here and awaken here. I laugh here and cry here. When I speak, the air carries my words in swirls from here to there and back again. I am from here. I am from everywhere. I belong.

— heidi kalyani, 2017 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line