Phew. We just arrived at a highway motel to crash for the night after a loooooong day. We woke up at Truth or Consequences after spending a fun night with our friends Julia and Pete who were passing through going the opposite direction on a cross country road trip. It was a silly place to meet up, and I loved it. We sat around, shared road stories, played set and had a slumber party. Then we woke up this morning and headed off our separate ways. Freddie and I drove for a few hours and then were unexpectedly stopped at a border patrol station along the highway that rides the edge of the U.S. Mexico border. It wasn't the worst, but it wasn't the best....Honestly, I kinda freaked out at thought of some worst case scenarios. They pulled us over as we watched them allow many other cars fly by. They had us get out of the car and searched its entirety with a dog. The dog had a reaction to our car so they were really insistent that we were carrying narcotics and/or marijuana. The only thing they could find was jars of "mysterious" herbs and trinkets and I think they were frustrated with going through our fully packed weird car.
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| A snapshot of our freaky fresh dashboard |
In all seriousness, it was really intense and they ended up bringing us inside and running Freddie's drivers license. Thanks to Freddie's squeaky clean record, they came back in the room where we were being detained and said "Freddie, have a good day" and opened the door for us to leave. Woah. I feel so lucky in this instance AND I feel so enraged by the militarization of borders. And it makes me think of how Trump wants to build a big concrete wall between here and Mexico....which brings us here...
We finally arrived in Fort Stockton where we planned to spend the night on the way to Austin and I got out of the car to go to the gas station. I walked in. Fox news was on. Surround sound. Donald Trump. #ProudAmerican. I took a deep breath and tried to escape into the fantasy that it just isn't real. But when I looked around, I couldn't deny it. Surrounded by oil rigs, pipelines, and toxic waste, I could not deny the reality of this country. It is devastating. I feel deeply truly scared about where we are, and where we are headed. Blegh. While we were in New Mexico I found myself thinking a lot about the colonization of indigenous people and land. It is so palpable there, everywhere you turn there are signs of appropriation, imperialism and colonialism. The Taos pueblo (descendants of Mesa Verde tribe) is confined to a small area after they spent years resisting the U.S. government acquiring their land and selling it off to private and public agencies like Carson National Park including Blue Lake which was a ceremonial site destroyed by logging roads and inconsiderate campers. There is so much more to say about all of this....But for now, I'll just say, I am learning a lot about this country: the geography, the politics, the culture...and I know there are so many layers and so much more to come. It is a lot to hold, but I am grateful to have family and political and queer community to hold it all together.
--- Eli
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