I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve been afraid to go beyond my front door in the last few days. The news is still filled with American chaos and riots and the very real fears faced by ethnic and religious minorities, women and the disabled. They’ve been put in the crosshairs of the President-elect — whether we want to admit it or not — by people of faith and colour like me.
So when the doorbell rings at 9:00 on a Saturday night, and standing in my doorway is the beautiful Syrian mother of my daughter’s classmate, I am beyond delighted. She’s having a birthday party, and our girl is invited. She apologizes for the short notice, but I don’t care about that at all.
She came, I think. She didn’t have my number, so she came right to the door, to me, to us. She knew we were American and she didn’t care. Our daughters are friends, we live just a couple hundred yards apart, we share a community and a country.
The news is not her reality, and it’s not mine either.
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I wrote at VOX.ie today about dealing with election fallout as an American abroad. It's tricky. I'm still learning. People are more complex than I thought, many are as afraid as they have every right to be, and others are much more gracious than I deserve.
And in an ironic twist, tomorrow we send in our Irish citizenship applications. This is not an act of protest; it is a dream 28 years in the making. We'll let you know when we know. xo