"I felt like I belonged somewhere, they understood me in a way I felt I had never been understood before," she says.
As a former biker in New York City, I understand; before the new bicycle-lane blitz, city streets were unwelcoming.
This is Admiral James Stockdale, who was, among other things, imprisoned alongside John McCain in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and who was also the Vice Presidential candidate running on the independent ticket, I understand, before you were born.
He's not speaking German now, so the only thing I understand – before Ramazan translates – is "fucking foreigners".
If she says she doesn't want to go, then swallow your pride, smile, and say "I understand," before walking away.
"This was not fashion as I understood it before," she recalled.
For that reason, what I most wish I had understood before the invasion was the reckless arrogance of the Bush administration.
I don't think I'd understood before then that a black middle class of any size existed, and her family came as news to me -- as I surely did to them.
I have learned that street harassment is part of city culture, which I never understood before growing up in the suburbs or walking around Durham.
I felt like I had just taken some kind of a happiness pill. I realized that philanthropy had been integrated into so many areas of my life; it had created something bigger and more interconnected than I had understood before.
