CROSSING THE BORDER

It’s still five days away but already my mind is in Texas. It’s not about longing. No, the Lone Star State looms. 

 

Texas is a Red State with a lot of personal history. I lived there for eleven years, from tenth grade through university and four years of teaching. But I left thirty-six years ago. I headed to L.A.—Malibu, specifically—and thought I’d never look back. 

 

Well, not exactly. That’s personal history rewriting itself. My years at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth had been particularly good times. I left Texas but many of those friends didn’t. At least, not at first. Back when George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton were presidents, I’d make an annual trip to see friends and family. Politics had no bearing on travel decisions within the U.S. 

 

My, how that’s changed…

 

As far as I can recall, I’ve only returned twice in the last fifteen years, once for my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, the other time for my niece’s wedding. (My niece now lives in Colorado.) 

 

Yes, my parents still live there. I sound like a heel since I haven’t visited. They’ve been living in a condominium for many years and I’ve never seen it. (My mother reminds me of this often.) But I do see my parents. I used to anyway. We would see each other every summer at the family cottage in Ontario. A few times I saw them at my sister’s place in Colorado. They’ve come to Vancouver as well, often connected with one of the many cruises my father loves to plan. 

 

For the past two summers, my parents have not gone to the cottage. They’ve said they won’t be going anymore. Navigating airports and flying have become too much for them. They’re not driving to Colorado either since the higher altitude negatively impacts both of them. And so, In 2024, I visited them in Gulf Shores, Alabama where they drive to spend a month each fall. It wasn’t so bad. I walked the beach, I biked a marshy area, I wrote by myself in a café. No politics. (Headphones can be glorious.) I don’t remember what the news of the day was but it was two weeks after twice-impeached Trump was elected president once again. (WTF?) My parents’ candidate had won so they probably felt like victors, too. Why rub their son’s face in it? (We’re not that kind of family.) I watched morning news with my parents. Safer viewing. More talk about the weather than anything else. I tracked down a New York Times while my parents read The Wall Street Journal. Politically, we coexisted without any two-track debates where our arguments never converge. This news-related ceasefire was a rarity for us.

 

But now it’s a much belated return to East Texas, the city of Tyler, two hours from Dallas, forty-five minutes from where I went to high school. 

 

East Texas.

 

This is a central hub for Red State thinking. This is the state that wants to put up the ten commandments in every classroom, for god’s sake. This is a state that smiles smugly as it proudly busses and flies immigrants to New York. It’s not an anti-gay, anti-trans leader like, say, Florida, but you can bet they’re on that bandwagon. I do everything I can to block from my mind whatever it is that Texas does politically. I don’t need the agitation or the aggravation. 

It would be easier to visit if my parents weren’t such news junkies. News is on morning and night. There are two newspapers delivered each day. My father comments on many of the news items, his opinions highly skewed. I hope to read, write or time my exercises with some of the newscasts. Anything to minimize the chances of an argument. As it is across the entire country, no one is going to change anyone’s mind in my parent’s household. All I have to do is shut up, even regarding topics about which I care deeply.

 

Repeat: No one is going to change anyone’s mind. 

 

Quite frankly, the news scares me. I don’t want to hear what’s being said on Fox News, nor do I want to hear what Texans are telling Texans. I don’t want to have a better understanding of what books are being banned, what anti-gay and/or anti-trans bills are before the state legislature or have recently been enacted. I don’t want to hear the political banter when I write at the café my mother tells me she thinks I’ll like. 

 

Must. Wear. Headphones.

 

In between newscasts and football games (which I also can’t bring myself to watch), let there be times to chat and connect. Let there be an occasion when I can hop in my rental car, drive to a state park and walk among the pine trees where the flora has no political opinions whatsoever. Let me get through this trip, family ties intact.