the border

line between human and

oh, pardon me for entering your country. your country. that's where the trouble starts. it gets me every time. how ridiculous it is. when we approached the officer in his booth. still in our car, he looked at our passports and then turned to us and said (literally, I am not joking!!): "Let's cut to the chase, how long will you be in the States for?" CUT TO THE CHASE? Seriously? As I looked around it dawned on me how sad it is. All these male officers walking around. Wide legged, chewing gum, trying so hard to look tough. Like a man. A protector. And I just wanted to say: "It's okay, we don't need that anymore. We respect you without all that drama. It's okay not to know. I know that's difficult.  Relax. Smile for a change."
 And then they made us go inside and wait. Wait with mostly asian or hispanic people. There was a poster on the wall saying "this is the face of our nation" promoting the new digital photos they are taking of people. And I looked around and thought "this is the face of our nation" and yet you are treating them like they are a threat.

They looked at our car and our food, and they threw out a whole container of rice. Because red rice is apparently a weed for the US. I smiled and nodded but inside I was repeating "you just threw out rice that could have lasted me for the next 2 weeks!". 

I invite you all to travel with someone to the US who is not a Canadian citizen. Cuz unless you do, you will never, never see the world I see every time I cross. You will just move through. Effortless, with a smile even. Who knows. But if you don't look a certain way or come from a different country then they will wave you to a different place. I know very well that I am complaining from a privileged place. I am white, german and a woman. I move through those borders fairly easily. But sitting there amongst my relatives from other countries I just feel so angry. So upset when the officers treat people like they are stupid just cuz their English is bad. Maybe angry is not the right word. It might be disbelief. It's just so ridiculous. The insecurities of the officers working are so obvious. And I know they are just doing their job. And most of them try hard to do it well. But this system. It doesn't work with children, you know? Be all intimidating. Tough. Harsh. I tried it but it doesn't work. It doesn't teach them anything positive. Or change them for the better. They just get scared and turn into people who are intimidating and angry. And so on. So when I look at those officers and how they treat us, I see a whole story. And the story of the story. 

We made it through. It took about an hour. We lost our rice and Nick's apple. He was upset about that for the next hour. I always leave the border not knowing if I should laugh or cry. It's always very hard for me to not just laugh out loud while going through the routine. And I also always leave having the image of all these eyes in my head. The eyes of the people waiting. Scared. Worried. Hopeful. Trying to be reassuring that they belong to good people. 

We are good people. 

Please let us through.