Safe Home

For All

Dateline: 2014

I’m headed home from work at the Middle East office. Tim Kelly (timklateriser) notes that I’ve got my helmet and gloves on.

“Safe Home”

The fine Irish sentiment "Slán abhaile" means "safe home" and is used to bid farewell to someone who is traveling home. The word "slán" means "safe" and "abhaile" means "homeward"

Reserved for the end of the night at the pub, I imagine.

I’ve since taken on this nice and short phrase and expanded it to what it means. Sure, ‘a safe ride’ was what Tim was wishing me.

But I’ve also left an apartment in the middle of the night because two junkies started hanging out with my roommate, and I feared my stuff would be stolen. I stayed on Josie's couch for the summer before finding an almost sketchier but safer home. The aforementioned roommate is clean now, last I heard. Safe at home with his parents.

15 Years Sober and now living with my partner. I believe I have a safe home. And except for the guy who hit me on my bike in 2018, resulting in a broken collar bone, I’ve mostly stayed safe on my daily bike rides.

Bike rides and drunk Uber rides aside, for me, the idea of a safe home goes beyond just a roof and walls. The concept of a safe home is not guaranteed for everyone. America and her democracy should be a safe place for women, trans people, people of color, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and even those of us so white that more than an hour in the sun could lead to a fate such as Claudia’s in Interview with the Vampire.

To me, on Election Day, the choice is clear. America is supposed to be a Safe Home, a place where everyone belongs. No casting out immigrants, no detention camps, no arresting journalists, no protecting domestic abusers, no acting like garbage to one another. One candidate believes in protecting our rights to disagree and in moving the needle on important issues, like healthcare access for women. The other candidate, however, only embodies the term “safe” with irony. He’s “The Other”—demonized here for good reason. He doesn’t care about Americans. He cares only about himself.