I love you because you are here.

Welcome. I want to start by sharing the story behind the title of this blog -- I love you because you are here. It is a story that has been waiting 10 years to be told. 10 years. I hadn't actually realized that much time had past until I just wrote it... in some ways it feels like it was last summer and in other ways it feels like it never really happened.

In the summer of 2015, I spent some time in a South African village eight hours outside of Johannesburg and just on the outskirts of Kruger National Park. The experience was both entirely foreign and perfectly familiar. I tasted food that made me feel as though it were the first time I had ever actually eaten real food and been truly nourished by a meal. Nothing exotic -- chicken actually -- but I mean chicken. The kind that lived the life a chicken is supposed to live, a life that ended just for that meal. And vegetables, with brilliant colors, perfect flavor, and all the nutrients of untouched soil.

But what was even more impactful than the food, was the love I experienced. And let me be clear, this is not a love story, as a US-american audience might assume reading right now. I did not have some great love affair in Africa. Rather I felt something so much more beautiful and pure. Actual love. Love of humans. One person to another, one group to another. Love that existed simply because we existed, together, in a shared time and space.

Which brings me to the true author behind the title I've chosen for this blog -- Miguelito. Michael was a secondary student in the village. He went by Miguelito because he was fascinated by Mexican telenovelas. Miguelito was not interested in practicing english with this group of US visitors, he wanted to practice spanish! Which I happily obliged.

Day two in the village, I started noticing how many of the young people we were interacting with kept telling us that they loved us. It was sweet, and a little unnerving, coming from a western culture that doles out love like a finite resource. It wasn't until Miguelito said, "we love you because you are here", that I understood. Love is not something that has to be earned, warranted, deserved, or even reciprocated. Love is just love. It's just a feeling, an energy, an appreciation to be openly shared simply because we exist together.

With that spirit, I will dedicate these words to Miguelito, the other beautiful souls I shared that experience with, and you for being here. And I will ask you to reflect on a moment you experienced pure love, or what that experience might feel like.

Thank you for being here. I love you.