On the Border

Kip and I are in McAllen, Texas. We are here visiting his parents. We are going to Nuevo Progreso, Mexico tomorrow. I feel so strange blithely crossing the checkpoint. We have done it so many times in the past but it seems to be so careless this time. I will buy my goat milk candy as usual, don't you worry....but still, it feels fraught. Like I will be on the lookout for children in cages and such like...I love it here. I love the Rio Grande Valley. We are happy to be back in the land of HEB and hats and boots. Never mind Austin. We might perhaps go back there one day but only if there's a payday waiting for us and I don't mean candy.

There is always an edge-of-the-world feeling here. And a sense of commerce and exploitation. Big business done in big ways. You get used to it after a couple of days. But I wonder. You know, about the wall. I don't think anyone here wants it. Maybe some of the republican MAGA winter Texan types? But then how will they get their cheap dental work? How will they go back and forth to get cheap glasses and Viagra and blood pressure meds?

There are families that commute across the border daily. They go to school and shop and work on one side or the other and now with the orange pigmonster threatening to slam shut the door between nations here, what will everyone do?