Much of my journalism career has been spent reporting on other places — women’s rights in Brazil, agriculture in Tanzania, infectious diseases in India, and so on. I don’t regret that focus, in part because it gave me an international perspective from which to view my home country, the United States.

I would speak with fishermen in the Arctic and realize how similar, in a surprising number of ways, their stories were to those in my beloved Chesapeake Bay. I would talk to mothers and midwives in Ethiopia about how they were reducing maternal deaths — and I would think about how to apply that in the U.S., which has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

All of these experiences drove me to return more to domestic reporting — to investigating the stories in my own backyard. I am also drawn to these stories because I am a part of them. I’m not parachuting in; I have the ability to embed myself in communities for years on end, to follow the same lives and narratives for my entire career. By leaving the country, I was missing some of the most important stories.

This renewed national focus has never seemed more relevant than now. The U.S. is a deeply divided country, and has been for some time; the U.S. is also made up of thousands of unified communities, and has been for its entire existence. I want to explore these apparent contradictions and nuances.

I’m grateful, though, that I began my career by looking outside first. Now I can return to my home with a new perspective and new eyes.