Today, Your Choice Will Define Your Home

It's Election Day. Your home's happiness will be affected by your vote. Choose wisely.

I started this Substack as a place to chat about writing, creativity, and creating a home after moving from an island to a house on the Delaware River. However today, Election Day 2024, my mind is on one thing.

Election Day always hovers around two of the most important moments of my life—the birth of my only child, and the week I bought my first house. My daughter was born the day before Election Day 2016, a day I hoped would be the day we’d elect our very first female president (we know what happened instead). Last year, on Halloween, we returned to the United States after five years abroad and took ownership of Ye Old River House.

We celebrated one year in this home (in a pivotal swing state I might add) last week. One year of dinners around our living room table, movies on our plush couch, morning coffee on the patio, lazy mornings in bed. Weve celebrated birthdays, the Olympics, anniversaries. We’ve filled shelves with books and art from summer camp. I love making this house a home, and every day is an adventure in homemaking.

When I think about Election Day 2024, I think about what this election means. I think about what issues are most important and which candidate is best to represent our country. More importantly, I think about who will make this country feel like home again.

The preisident of the United States is not just a leader, but a permanent part of our daily lives. The president affects every daily decision we make from where we can get health care, how much gas will cost, where we can go on vacation, to what we can afford to buy at the store. The vote we cast today will dictate who that leader is and what choices you will have for your life for years to come.

Moreover, the president is an omnipresent character in our homes. Their actions, sound bites and interactions with world leaders will be talked about over breakfast, with your families and neighbors. The president’s face, whereabouts, decisions and verbiage are blasted on every medium possible—news programs, social media sites, newspaper headlines. Your vote will dictate who you will be listening to ad naseum for the next four years. And if you consider what we’ve had to endure for the last 8 years or so, you should choose wisely.

Do you want to elect an illiterate hothead whose words incite riots, offend millions, and make women and children cringe? Or do you want to elect a leader who you trust can speak in public with a fair command of the English language?

Before you case your vote, think about which leader you want to be a part of your household. Who will you enjoy speaking about around yourbdinner table? Who will you feel comfortable to watch on television during the evening news? Who will you want your daughter to ask questions about when she gets home from school? Who will you enjoy watching deliver the State of the Union addresses on television, perhaps with your sweet elderly next door neighbors, all of you sipping wine and clapping as she speaks to the nation?

For me, the choice is clear.

I hope for you, you exercise your right to vote for what’s best for your home.I hope you consider who will be best suited to navigate and lead the country on the issues that matter most to you. But remember, the president will be a permanent house guest in your home for the next four years.

Choose wisely. And make her a plate when she’s elected.

Vote (for Kamala Harris).