Thinking of You: More Encounters with Family
When we got home, there was a card waiting for us. It was from a relative of one of ours.
One side of our family, mine, is almost entirely Catholic. The other side, Ami’s, is mostly Mormon. I’m not going to identify the relative who sent the note because much as this card hurt us both, it came from someone whom we both want to continue to have in our lives. And while it was one person who expressed the thought, it could have come from a number of our family members from both sides. We will call the writer Chris.
The front of the card said, “Thinking of You,” and the envelope was addressed to both of us. It was from one of the relatives we had visited on our trip. Inside there was an affirmation that we were always welcome in Chris’s house. Then it said, “I don’t think of your relationship as a marriage! nor do I like how you’re living it!” That first exclamation point was obviously inserted as an afterthought. It was signed “Love, Chris.”
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Oregon: the Last State
Greetings from Portland. The other Portland. We’re precariously parked in a lot nearby–I say precariously because we paid for one spot, though technically our rig barely squeezes into two. Also, the spot we chose was the only one in the lot that had two spots lined up so the car and trailer would fit, and happened to be where two parts of the lot joined in a raised asphalt scar. Whether we’ll get out without bumping the trailer jacks as we roll over the hump remains to be seen.
We knew we needed to stop though, lest you think we’d abandoned the blog. The Bay Area was full of good friends and lots to do. And last night and the night before we were promised WiFi at our destinations, but it didn’t work.
Yesterday morning, back at the Lakeshore Villa RV Park in Lakehead, CA, Ami and I hugged, both to ward off the morning chill and to enjoy our last moments as a married couple–at least for this trip. We return to Seattle today, though our journey is far from over. For one thing, there’s a backlog of states that we still need to report on. Another: there is still more to say about our marriage, legal and not, and our legal everything-but-marriage once we get home. Still another: there are still, as we end this trip, 44 states that do not consider us married.
Read moreSearching for a Protestant Pope in Fresno
We left the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles in the afternoon, in the last hour of pink-sienna-magenta sky before twilight. I’d sampled amazing Italian olive oil at The Cheese Store of Silver Lake, taken a delightful turn through the ReForm School, and eaten the best gelato of my life (Market plum! Chocolate covered raisin! Salty chocolate!) at Pazzo Gelato.
We were sad to leave L.A., but I was even sadder that we were leaving for Fresno.
Fresno: n., The place that you struggled to leave physically many years ago, but still struggle to leave mentally. A place you don’t like to visit, because as soon as you’re back it seems like nothing ever got better at all.
Read moreMarriage (and Other LGBT) Equality in New Mexico and Arizona
Sure, it’s cheesy, but I’ve been known to say that my soul lives in New Mexico. My marriage, on the other hand, does not.
Before I talk about these two states, however, I want to talk again about Border Patrol. As we made our way on I-10 and then I-8, we were driving alongside the border occasionally. You could see the fence that separated the United States from Mexico. A long, man-made blight on the otherwise beautiful desert. White SUVs with the green Border Patrol stripe passed us frequently, sometimes on dirt roads along the interstate. While these facts may be less than positive from our perspective, what was shocking and upsetting was the number of times that we had to go through Border Patrol checkpoints. Let me remind you: we did not go to Mexico. These were checkpoints set up along roads that only traveled through United States land–both I-10 and I-8 are east-west roads that do not enter Mexico at any point. But because of the proximity to the border, we were all suspect.
Likely some of us more than others. While one of the patrolmen did remind Ami that she was in California when she identified that as her destination, and a few of them gave us less-than-savory looks, we were not stopped for more than a minute at each point. We were not searched. We were not harrassed. What would have happened if we were not so fair-skinned? I will leave you to draw your own conclusion there, since I’m just speculating, but I know I have my theories.
Read moreCalifornia – Where Our Legal Marriage Began
This wasn’t the easiest picture to get. Yesterday afternoon we drove into California and, not finding a welcome sign at which to document our entry, back to Yuma, Arizona.
“You’re in California. Nobody cares.” I said.
When we drove back across the one-lane bridge, there was no sign saying we were welcome in Arizona, either. We took a different road, and there was this sign. But no shoulder to pull off onto. So we turned around again and parked the entire rig right next to the I-10 on-ramp. We put on the hazards and made our way across the four-lane road to get to the sign.
This was the last time we’d be entering a state in which we were married–it was important.
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