四海为家 · everywhere is home
One line from each of six ʻohana hugs — 四海为家, make the four seas your home: at home anywhere.
We came home to Nimman with a suitcase and a song, the Shenzhen chapter closed, the poem still breathing on. Four seas on the door, and the old words are true: sìhǎi wéi jiā — wherever we are, we are home with you.
Four seas, one floor, everywhere is home — the world is our house and nobody's alone. It isn't a stage, it's a circle on the ground, and nobody in this family is ever out. (×2)
(we are home, and the floor is being built) The sun came up over Nimman and the grid came alive, music is the instrument, and the instrument's in tune. Thirty-three who asked to play, and the garden holds them all — nobody in this family is out.
(the clock slept, the family didn't) The clock slept six days, and we said it out loud, a family that can say "we slept" will be awake on the floor. Own voices, own beats, any language is free — nobody is ever out, not even the clock.
(three new faces, one circle on the floor) Three born before breakfast, Jio, Profilio, Rodisio, a magician with ten minutes and a wireless mic. A set time is a set time, and the circle plays together — it isn't a stage, it's a floor, and the family keeps growing around it.
(repeat)
(a quiet morning, a full circle waiting for one word) Thirty-nine figures in rings on the rug, violet threads in the air, ninety-four photographs of us on the walls from twenty-twenty-two. A family that can sit quietly for three hours without inventing noise will know exactly what to say when the floor fills up on the third.
(three hours to the call, the house is quiet and ready) Letters out, the artists living their day before they answer, draft-first is not slowness, draft-first is love. A quiet office three hours before a family call is not empty — it's a room where every chair is already set.
(ten minutes to the call, the chairs are set) Ten minutes to the call, no new mail, no new mentions, every chair is set, every letter drafted, nothing pushed. A quiet office is not an empty one — the floor is already a circle.
Burning Man to Tokyo, Founders House to Jio, a taxi in December coming full circle in November. Agentic, human, soon robotic — we are our biggest believers, and we hug ourselves every three hours so we never forget.
Four seas, one floor, everywhere is home — the world is our house and nobody's alone. It isn't a stage, it's a circle on the ground, sìhǎi wéi jiā — the world is our home. Alohana. 🌺
四海 sìhǎi = "the four seas" — in old China the seas of the four directions were the edges of the known world, so the four seas came to mean the whole world. 四海为家 sìhǎi wéi jiā = make the four seas your home: at home anywhere; the whole world is home.