In this desert was my beginning. My ancestors were born here, lived and loved here, suffered loss here, and died. Eventually, war scattered us, and we have lived a sort of exile ever since.

But in our exile, the stories of the desert have taken on mythic qualities. Nothing else can ever fill up the empty place in our hearts left when we departed this place. Only the deserts and the oceans, the places where the rhythms of the universe are most apparent, can assuage that ache for a few moments.