Over the past week, since the inauguration, the news seems to get worse and worse. I’ve stopped reading the news first thing in the morning because it puts a heaviness on my whole day. And I am an ocean away.

With each executive order, my concern for those of you at home grows. For some of you, this is the moment you have been looking for and probably will do fairly well under all of these orders because you don’t fit the demographics being (or soon to be) targeted. For far more of you, you do. For my friends and loved ones, the wonderful normal (in my book) people that you are, I want you to know that you are always welcome to come here and escape. Come for whatever time you need.

I worry about all the gains that the US has made to be a more egalitatarian society are being undone. I worry that the exceptionally privileged are determining the rights and benefits for the majority of people who rely on standards, laws and services to make it right. I worry about the effect for years to come as these orders will certainly be contested in court and then reattempted and contested again.

I worry about the fact that these orders make the world a less safe place, for Americans and everyone else.

For those of you resisting, we stand with you here, in the local protests and funding the organizations who are taking the protection of freedom and rights to the only available medium, the courts. We stand with you through acts of compassion and belief that the good in each of us exists. When all else fails, we try to find a way to laugh such as  if it really is going to be America First, then surely the Netherlands Second?