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I was meeting with a writing coaching client. She had already sent me a text last week about her emotional reaction to the election results. I knew where she stood politically and how she was feeling.
“What do people think there in Spain?” she asked me.
I hadn’t thought much about it, so her question caught me by surprise.
“It’s funny you ask. I was speaking about our Strawberry Girls Project last week at a private international school. It was actually on Wednesday, the day after the elections. When I got out of the car in the secured parking lot, I was met by several teachers. I received multiple messages of condolences.”
“Condolences?”
“Yes, they actually said, ‘I’m so sorry for what has happened to your country.’”
“Wow, I don’t think our country has ever been one where we expect people to feel sorry for us,” my coaching client responded.
I haven’t stopped thinking about what she said.
It was interesting . . . interesting that these teachers at this elite school in Spain didn’t know me well, didn’t know what my political views were, didn’t know how or if I voted, didn’t know what or how I might be feeling that morning.
It was interesting that they automatically tagged me as a Democrat, as a non-Trump supporter, as someone who was grieving that day.
I won’t state my political views, because it’s a hot topic these days. There’s already enough conflict in the world. It’s also not my aim or the aim of The Cultural Story-Weaver. I use this platform to unite, to love, to accept, to respect one another . . . in all our differences . . . not to divide, to hate, to reject, and to disrespect one another.
I just found it interesting. Is it because my work on the ground in Spain is primarily with immigrants, refugees, and rescued survivors of human trafficking? Is that why they labeled me with those political views and beliefs?
I don’t know. I think I’ll ask. Or, maybe I won’t.
In any case, it has caused me to think, to observe, and to reflect, which are all good things to do, especially today when my home country is divided and at odds.
Today, I find myself in a place of acceptance, acceptance of what I can’t change, can’t control, can’t do anything about.
What about you? Where are you today? Are you fighting, wrestling, at war with the inevitable and the unchanging? Or are you at peace, resting, and accepting our new reality?
So, what do people think here in Spain? I can’t speak for all of them; however, the ones I have talked to feel sorry for us.
That is a sad reality that I also have to accept, to be ready to hear, to listen to.
“You’re right,” I told my writing coaching client. “Our country has never been one where we expect people to feel sorry for us. Yet, that is now the case.”
—The Cultural Story-Weaver
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