Dear Asma,

I cannot quite recall the moment when a blank page first began asking more of me, when silence gently turned into a need for words. Yet today my fingers move carefully across the keyboard. Almost deliberately, as if trying to match the shared breath of a community that, over the past few days, seems to be living in a deeper sense of togetherness. I will take this slowly. I will not rush it. I am not even certain my thoughts will arrange themselves into something perfectly whole, but I will try. Let us keep it simple.

I am so proud of our home. I hope you will not mind that I have come to embrace your home as my own, because somewhere along the way, the UAE quietly became mine as well. I have lived here for more than three years now. I still remember a flight back from one of my travels when returning to Dubai suddenly felt different. It was not the familiar feeling of going back to a place where I live, but something deeper, like the organic certainty of returning to a place where I belong. It stayed with me, Asma, because it may have been the first time I felt that a place, not just a person, could hold the meaning of home.

And perhaps belonging is the most remarkable value this country has given us. We are all so different here, and yet somehow united in that diversity. We arrived from distant corners of the world, maybe to begin again, to build something, to grow, to create, to support one another and to succeed in ways we once only imagined. Many of us came alone. Yet somewhere along the journey we found each other. What formed in the spaces between those encounters became something rare. Bonds that sometimes feel stronger than the ones we carried with us from childhood. The quiet miracle of a chosen family, a community of like-minded, yet wonderfully different individuals who decided, consciously or not, to stand beside one another.

This family stands together, and today more than ever it seems to breathe as one. There is a particular stillness in the air, a sense of steadiness that reveals itself most clearly in moments when the world beyond our borders feels uncertain. It is then that you begin to understand the true value of stability, of trust, of leadership that builds a sense of safety large enough to hold millions of different lives under one shared horizon. Perhaps that is what makes calling this place home so powerful. It is not only the skyline, nor the extraordinary ambition that shaped it. It is the quiet confidence that life here continues with dignity, clarity and unity, even when the world feels less certain. It is the knowledge that stability is not something abstract, but something you feel in the rhythm of everyday life. And it’s meant for you, me, and everyone else we share these beautiful streets with.

I usually write to you from distant hotels and faraway destinations I wish to describe to you. But today I decided simply to write from home. From my desk overlooking the beautiful Dubai Fountain, which never seems to lose its ability to amaze me, or the thousands of visitors who gather here every day. Just beyond it stands the endless movement of Dubai Mall, where I occasionally surrender to my guilty pleasures. And above it all rises the proud silhouette of the Burj Khalifa, sophisticated, visionary, and unmistakably unique. Yet it is not only these landmarks that make this view extraordinary. It is the life unfolding around them.

Walking these streets, driving along these roads, still feels like a kind of discovery. A journey outward and inward at the same time. I walked my dog today around Burj Park, just as I do every day. We are both equally enthusiastic about this simple ritual. For the same reason, I suspect – to absorb everything we can. The views, the sounds, the scents. The movement of people. The intentional beauty of hospitality, architecture, bridges, gardens, water, light. The countless small details that together form the rhythm of a city that never stops evolving.

And perhaps that is the greatest comfort of all. To know that while we will continue to travel, to explore and to discover distant places, there is always somewhere we return to. Somewhere that gathers us again, gently and steadily.

We are here to stay, Asma. We will see the world, and it will change us. But every journey will carry us back to the same place. Home.
Always a little wiser.
Always a little more united.
Always a little more like one.

As I finish writing, Rina and Elton filled the living room through my “Liked Songs” playlist:

“We don’t need to be related to relate

We don’t need to share genes or a surname

You are, you are

My chosen, chosen family

So what if we don’t look the same?

We been going through the same thing

Yeah, you are, you are

My chosen, chosen family”

With love from Home,
Milo