Now, I won’trecountanecdotes. Instead,here,I will writeof relations,andof what we share asrelativeson our crossingon this Earth. Of the body of our origins, gently nurturingus as we movethrough and across. And of herubiquitousgravity thatfirmlyholds us,enmeshed.I’ll whispersoftlyof language,oflistening, and of tellingsotherwise.I’ll whisper ofthe grammars wemighttake upon us in our longing,aspirations,dreams,and desiresto createa world that holdsthediversity ofallliving formsat its heart, cast in reciprocal relationships between relatives far and near.Like many, my storyechoesoneamong many of separationand loss—lossof the land and soils thathold my language,heartandthose who came before me.Yet it is also one of love, astoryof return. Inthis mourning, I return in dreams. In this mourning,I return in my adulthoodto the nest my feet oncewalked, as I have carried and carry it in memory.As I descend the airspace, fixingmy feet on herback, it is as if shebeckonsme in her soothingembrace:«Child, remove your shoes, rest your feetupon my body»,my tearsland heavilyonher red,silkyskin, like an unstoppable tide.Even if ourlands are rendered in plural, their primordialbreathis singular. And how we act upon our shared bodyof origin, determines our becoming and livingness, as relatives.The tremblingwhispersof the Earth seem to speak of a multitude of stories:Ofseparation, andofdispossession. Of chaos and catastrophe,upon catastrophe. The fruits she bears, we harvest toquenchourunquenchable thirst. Her body and repositories, wecast as absorptive emptinessdepletedof matterto build our surrounds. The scars and imprints we leave behind as if we know nobetter, as if she taught us nothing at all, as if we know no borders. These markings seem to speak of along durée that render visible the masked intentions inherent to modernity—markedby exploitation,commodification and subjugation. They seem to speak ofitsripples in the wake, of ecologicalcollapse, and of the ruins left by rampant capitalism. Yet, the possibilities of dreaming of our worldanew might be held by grammars weadeptly take on us inour defiance ofthe confines by which thediscipline of architecture is measured