This is Manchester. This is my chosen home. I may be abroad, but I am one with that city and this image drives home everything I love about it…its spirit, its faith in hard times, its commitment to the ideals we all aspire to live by.

I hear Manchester is having vigils across the city, in mosques, in houses of every faith, in the streets, in homes, online, over the phone. I love you, Manchester. May this solidarity support the poor people today who are fighting for their lives in hospital, those who have lost their loved ones at a pop concert, of all things, and those who are injured in any way.

I sit here in a darkened room with candles by my side, reading, thinking, feeling you, Mancunians, and it makes me feel good that the world is all eyes on you now, for this is how we remind ourselves that humans are better than what one lost individual did last night. We can demonize him and we will, but somewhere something really sick and broken let this happen.

Manchester, you are cups of tea in tragic moments and hands held and hugs and Samaritans. You are social to the core and this is your roar. Manchester, the beautiful, stay together. Show the country that’s what we’re all made of.