Lately, I’ve been thinking about where I’m from.
Not in the way people mean when they ask at a networking event, or in the way passport stamps try to explain you. I mean the places that shaped the inside of me. The places that made me laugh a little differently, sit a little quieter, learn the timing of pauses between stories.
I’m from the smell of ironed uniforms on Monday mornings and shoes polished sparkling and shiny black with Kiwi shoe shine.
From porridge that tastes slightly burnt but still feels like home. And bread spread with blueband and then panfried – like French toast but without the eggs.
From relatives who were my first friends and who are so many that every get together is spent answering the same question like 15 times… and it feels like home to echo a response and be received each time with job. And relatives who can tolerate you telling the same stories every year—always louder, always funnier—with details that change depending on who is listening.
From cousins who know what it is to play in an Ikumbi and come out covered in the white residue of shackled maize that has been stored to cook Githeri later in the year.
I’m from long silences during car rides.
From knowing how to read moods by how people stirred their tea. Or gave you a side eye. Or held one orange colored Bata slipper. Heck even a mwiko.
I’m from shared worn out shoes, and dresses, and shirts, and hair clips… and the quiet dignity of reuse. From generosity without ceremony. From people who shared and showed up. From afternoons where the electricity went out, and someone started singing in the dark.
There are parts of me that were shaped not by big events, but by small repetitions. The way a plastic chair creaks under your weight during a long story. The rhythm of a name answered three different ways depending on who’s calling it. The softness of my mother’s voice when she prays for us—not performatively, but from somewhere deep inside her chest. And loudly on Saturday morning which was so annoying when you’re trying to sleep!
I’m also from people who often said things that made me cry at night because their honesty was sometimes cruel. From whispered tales shared in phone calls and catchups and today, from WhatsApp messages. From family gatherings that always wanted to ask if I should join the gym and I fought the urge to punch people in the face. From questions about love and marriage – and having no answer to give over and over again. From women who never said I love you but insisted on singing a chorus after a family gathering and saying a prayer of protection and journey mercies.
I’m still from those things. Even when I live elsewhere. Even when I sound different. Even when I write in a voice that someone might call “neutral.” Even when I silently withdraw from gatherings that seem a bit more hostile than I would like but still strike a chord of longing inside me.
I carry these people, moments, conversations, tears, and everything else in my silences. In the way I pace a paragraph. In the way I don’t always finish a thought.
Where I’m from isn’t just a location. It’s a cadence. A palette. A way of remembering.