A small story from an airport line and the absurd ritual of proving you belong.
Written 37,000 feet in the air by someone who has been overthinking it for four hours.
Wait behind the yellow line. Don’t give them a reason to be angry. Wait to be called. He gestures for me to move forward. I’m his first of the day.
I place my passport, boarding pass and green card on the counter.
“Remove your hat.”
I was just about to, but fine. He beat me to it. I remove my hat.
“Stand on the yellow mark. Look into the camera.”
I’m on the mark, but I readjust anyway. I look into the camera. I don’t blink, I don’t smile, I don’t breathe.
“Passport and boarding pass.”
They’re right there on the counter in front of him. It’s okay. It’s fine. I pick them up and hand them to him.
“Where do you live?”
“Miami.” No emotion. Just answer the question.
“Why were you here?”
You’re holding an Irish passport, I think. I’m trying hard not to say that. He’s looking at me suspiciously.
“I’m from here,” I say, my Irish accent underlining the point.
“That’s not what I asked. Why were you here?”
The anxiety rises. The snappy response builds. He’s staring at me now. It feels less a light questioning and more an interrogation. He knows the answers he wants. He’ll judge anything outside of that.
“I was visiting my mother.”
“How long were you here?”
“About a week. Two.”
Damn, I know I messed up there. They don’t like hesitation.
“Which is it?”
“Two. Two weeks”
“Did you go anywhere else?”
“I went to England for a week.”
“What for?”
I think of the car, the winding roads, the changing leaves, the lakes.
“Because of the beautiful countryside.”
He doesn’t like that. And his face tells me that I’m being difficult now.
“Do you know anyone in England?”
“I know lots of people in England.”
He really doesn’t like that. I know what he meant but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Did you meet anyone in England?”
What are we even doing now? I met a load of people. B&B hosts. Friends. Other residents. I went to a football match, spoke to another Irish guy for two hours among seventy thousand people. I chatted to a father and kid about the game afterward.
“No.”
He sighs, gives me the look, then slams my passport, green card, and boarding pass on the counter.
“Okay.”
That’s it. That was the exit from my childhood home. A visit to celebrate my mother’s eightieth birthday. Time with family. More conversations about the welfare of an aging world and increasing responsibility.
And that was also the welcome to my current home. The place I worked hard to earn the right to live.
I’m not alone in this experience. In the grand scheme of things, it’s nothing more than the words, actions, and reactions of a person in a role that seems to grant a right, or at least a habit, of power.
I’ve gone through this process countless times in the ten years since moving to the United States, and it says something that I can recall the moments when people have been kind. That’s how unusual it is.
And I know that even with this discomfort, I’m still moving through the world with every advantage. I speak the language. I’m white. I carry the right passport. If this is how it feels for me, I can’t imagine what it must be like for someone without those shields.
I’ll forget his face soon enough. But not the feeling. The unfortunate aide effects of a learned reflex that comes before every border. The calculation of tone and movement.
A reminder that belonging is always conditional, even when the passport says otherwise.
Damn. Great read, Paul! Love it.
It's a sad reality. These types of stories always make me think: what if humans never made country lines a construct in the first place? Land was simply free to roam where you please, and people were happy to see you arrive and thanked you for the visit -- wishing you'd come back soon.