Winter is coming.

I'm sat here in a relatively tattered hotel room drinking red wine and unsubscribing from a slew of social media accounts belonging to the current President of the United States. This point-and-click session is oddly cleansing and comforting, knowing there is nothing to come from the next one that I'll want to see on a regular basis - you see, I have one child at home already. He, too, can be petulant and think everything he wants but doesn't get is just NOT FAIR!

But mine's 4. Equally small hands, tho.

And mine's got Down's syndrome. Mine will probably never be President, but with his perfect pure soul, his innate empathy and complete lack of hate and self-absorption, he sure as hell should be. He is half American after all. He works hard, he's clever, and people who aren't hostile to one another truly adore him. He'd have my vote, but then again, I'm entirely biased.

Hours ago, I left work after Skyping my husband and that beautiful son, signing "good night, I love you" through a computer screen when otherwise I'd have been doing this in person, next to his bedroom door, arms still warm from the last blissful cuddle of the day. I haven't been apart from my sweet Rukai for more than a single night since he was a year old, when I went back home to the place where I was born, home to do something important. There hasn't been anything that important until now.

But tomorrow I'm going home to march. Not during the inauguration, oh no, avoiding that like the plague. But for Saturday's Women's March on Washington, you can count me IN.

Because a country's leader should not be talking about grabbing women by the pussy and trying to pass it off as 'locker room banter'.

Because a country's leader should not be mocking disabled people and gaslighting detractors when that behavior is challenged.

Because the leader of a country made of immigrants should not be building walls and alienating entire religions to keep immigrants out.

Because hatred and racism and misogyny are not American values.

Because confrontation is not what brings people together.

Because referring to oneself in the third person is not NORMAL. Because none of this is. And I will not normalize it.

Not my President.
Not my America.
Not my values.
So I'm going home to march. I'm flying from London to Washington, from one home's capitol to the other, to stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow patriots. To remind that new government that the world IS watching.

The day I found out about the Women's March from a friend's Facebook post, I immediately turned to my husband and said 'I'm going.' He didn't even flinch. Because he knows. And were he the marching type he'd be there too.

As for those supporters of his calling us snowflakes? Well it's snowing alright. Plenty of beautifully special snowflakes on the move now, crystalline originality, now gathering, gathering, falling down the roads and lanes across America. Across the planet. Taking to the skies and the sidewalks, past those monuments to real leaders named Washington, Lincoln. Working their way to a great gathering. Stirring life's passions and focus and purpose into one HELL of a nasty blizzard.

Here, too, Winter is coming.

Get ready for the storm.