“Your body is the first home you know.”
–Dantiel W. Moniz
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After four months of travel and writing to complete a book proposal for Turn (W)here: A Geography of Home, an essay collection on my relationship to home and belonging through travel as a Black American woman, I herniated a disc in my neck. The pain made it difficult to do anything other than stand. Turning my head, sitting, breathing—they all were accompanied by lightning strikes diffused through my body. My muscles on fire with tension, sleep evaded me. Between the exhaustion and the pain that ached into my jaw and palm and made my fingers numb, I struggled to write by hand—my primary mode of drafting and processing.
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