Yesterday, I received my first US Passport!  How exciting!  I feel like a real American now! I expected that the moment I had it in my possession, I would want to travel internationally.  It’s true!   I spent part of my afternoon admiring the passport and imagining all the places I might travel with it.

We have no current plans to travel out of the country, but we have talked many times about the trips we might take one day. Now those places feel so much closer!

Looking at the passport spurred some travel memories.

When Kevin and I visited San Diego in 1996,  (long before we knew we would move there seven years later in 2002) we took a day trip across the border to Mexico. This trip was good for a story that Kevin loves to tell and will probably do so for as long as we live.  In fact, he just told it to our campground neighbor, Wendy, the other night!  I sometimes feign embarrassment when he tells the story, but I really just enjoy the memory!

The day we went to Tijuana, we left the car in San Ysidro, on the US side, and took a trolley to the border, where we walked freely across the footbridge into Mexico.  It was my first time in Mexico.  I had never traveled internationally, except for a bus trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls when I was a teenager. It was kind of exciting (and a little scary too!)  We spent an enjoyable day in the tourist area of TJ, Avenida Revolución—“La Revo.”  We ate, drank, bought a few things, and took a taxi back to the border crossing in the evening.

In those pre 9/11 days, US citizens did not need a passport to travel between Mexico and the US.  The border agents would accept a driver’s license or other photo ID.  As we approached the border crossing to return to the US, Kevin reminded me to have my driver’s license ready.  I said nonchalantly, “Oh, I left that in my purse in the car in San Ysidro.”  The reality of what I had done suddenly hit me when I saw the incredulous expression on Kevin’s face.  He asked, “You went to a foreign country and did not bring any identification with you?”  “Yes, I guess I did,” I answered.

Kevin had a lot of fun teasing me about not being allowed back into the country as we walked and I was getting quite nervous as we approached the border-crossing. When we reached the border agent, he looked at Kevin’s ID and waved him through. I told the border agent what I had done, and he just shrugged and let me pass. Kevin believes I was unusually (and possibly unfairly) unlucky.  He enjoys telling that story because it shows how absent-minded and naïve I was, the world has changed and it brings back good memories of our first day in TJ.

Looking at the blue cover of my passport also brought back a more sobering memory of traveling by plane in the weeks after 9/11.  I felt nervous and jittery. It appeared everyone else in the airport did as well. We had passed by armed National Guardsmen at the security checkpoints and the atmosphere was thick with tension.  As I was sitting in my seat on the plane at the gate at San Francisco International, waiting for the other passengers to board the plane, I watched the people coming down the aisle.

A brown-skinned man who appeared to be of middle-eastern descent appeared, moving down the aisle toward his seat.  He looked scared.  His eyes were cast downward.  With his left hand, he was holding his blue US Passport up next to his face. My fear vanished in an instant and  I felt some shame for allowing it to harbor in my heart.  My heart broke for him and for all of us when I saw that man’s face.  I couldn’t imagine what he must have gone through that day.  I thought of the fear and the suspicion that was simmering in all of us—boiling over in some—and what that would mean to all of us in the days, months, and years ahead. The tears filling my eyes threatened to fall.   I tried to make eye contact with the man to offer him a smile, but he kept his eyes looking downward.  Now, I look down at the blue cover of my passport and I see his face.

I hope I always remember his face.

Blessings!