Please tell me about us

As the offshore half of a same sex bi-national couple I made it clear to anyone who would listen long ago that my path in this would be within the law at all times. My conscience is clear ~ my only "wrongdoing" has been to love an American and seek to spend time with her. I have never worked in America ~ not even for a single hour. Nor have I ever overstayed. Loving an American ties one inextricably to America itself. I love this country deeply. I love her people and, were I to be given half a chance, would adopt them as my own. Yet even the merest thought of facing American immigration officials at the US border fills me with a gut wrenching fear.

And so, on this afternoon when fear looms particularly large, I phone Cas from New Zealand and plead "Please tell me about us".

"Tell me about the winding woodchip path you and I spent days creating beneath the fir trees. Tell me about our foxgloves and our daffodils and the second coat of paint we really must put on the front porch before winter bites in again. Tell me too about the colourful people - how is the Hasidic neighbour you have befriended and the charming Indian man who flirts with you while he sells you cigarettes and 92 year old hitchhiking Edna who you and I often drive to her home. Has she invited us to any neighbourhood parties lately? What combination of psychedelic colours is she wearing this spring? And tell me about our six cats ~ is Felix watching too much TV and is Rockie losing weight ~ oh how I miss his eyes as big as saucers! And you? Tell me, my love, about you.

Tell me simple inconsequential mundane everyday ordinary things that are so real and so huge they will cast aside my fear!"