It had been a few months since Nemi and I had seen each other. As I arrived at her community on the Nushino River by canoe, I caught her peeking behind the base of a tree. As soon as I sat down she got closer, ran up to me and began searching through my hair. Last time I was in her community I had spent hours looking through her hair. Without thinking much I already knew, this was reciprocity, this was love. Oftentimes people associate lice with being “dirty”, with indigenous people/communities...but I know it’s simply a reflection of our proximity and intimacy with the earth and with each other, which is absolutely beautiful. I have memories of being Nemi’s age running around with an itchy head and my aunts, mother, or cousins looking through my hair for hours. I never saw it as something that was “dirty”, I saw it as love...because it is love and always has been.