“Places are alive like ghosts are alive: subtle, unpredictable shape-shifters, infused with memory and emotion. The spirit of a place—the genius loci, as the ancients called it—rises from the land’s stories, its unique matrix of weather, struggle, celebration, and blood. There are places we return to again and again to find our stories. We change; they change. The stories we tell take on lives of their own…”

With thanks to BOOM editors, Romeo Guzman and Carribean Fragoza, for working with me on this new piece about my parents’ hometowns.

Janelle Saito, in “Acts of Grace,” photo by Dave Lehl.