Passport, Please!

There was a tornado warning in our county a few years ago and as I was gathering up my boys to run to a neighbor’s basement for cover, I instinctively threw our passports in my purse for safekeeping. For most of my life, my passport has been the most important document in my possession. Thinking back to the many Eurail pass excursions as a college student or the bus crossing the border from Finland to the Soviet Union as a teenage foreign exchange student or my departure from Venezuela with my two young children to relocate in the U.S. – my American passport has been essential to getting where I needed and wanted to travel. I have often marveled at how lucky I was to be born in a country where so many doors are opened simply by flashing that blue booklet full of colorful stamps. This sense of gratitude was never more apparent than during my travels to East Berlin in the late 1980s just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I remember so vividly the hopeless expressions on the faces of the people left behind as our train pulled away from the station. They did not have the right documents to escape the despair of their home country.

It’s a funny thing about this world we live in. There are borders everywhere – some visible, some even quite fortified, and others impossible to detect. Just looking out my window, I can see the property line that divides my yard from my neighbor’s merely by the height and condition of the grass (mine is not nearly as attractive as his!). Dogs down the street seem to be amazingly obedient of their boundaries, as they never venture onto the sidewalk or street to investigate a person or vehicle passing by. Could it be that an “invisible fence” is keeping them at bay? I’ve learned through my intercultural studies as well as firsthand experience that people maintain a type of invisible physical boundary or “bubble,” as I like to call it, around them when shaking hands, conversing, and going about their day-to-day business. If you are familiar with Seinfeld’s “close talker” character, you know how uncomfortable it can be when someone invades your personal space. Even my children know that when they come to my comfy bed in the middle of the night that the pillow I leave in the middle of the bed is a boundary that they must not cross or else mom will be grouchy in the morning!!

I used to love crossing borders when I was a college student living in Luxembourg in the heart of Europe. Every country had its unique passport stamp and it became a badge of honor to fill your passport with them despite the fact that the border guards often roused us from our sleep as we transversed a national boundary in the middle of the night. There was a time when visas were required to travel to several Eastern European countries and having one of these gems granted you major bragging rights, particularly if they were written in Cyrillic letters or a language completely foreign to English-speaking youth. Sadly, as the Iron Curtain was lifted and the European Union finally came together, the borders fell away and one could travel across most of Europe without the need to show a passport. Gone were the colorful pages and the corresponding stories of border crossing adventures.

Gone are the days of passport stamps at every European border crossing.

When I think of borders, I’m often reminded of my travels to East Berlin after the fall of the Wall. How odd it was to stand in places that just a few years before were a part of the “no man’s zone” where placing one toe would have gotten you shot. I tried to explain to people how different it felt to be in a city so transformed by the removal of a simple walled structure. To a younger generation who may wonder why the Wall was erected in the first place, I find it hard to provide an answer that satisfies their curiosity. It seemed so pointless to me at the time and especially now. Borders are like that, I suppose. They divide people who may or may not want to be divided. Certainly, borders can provide clearly defined limits, which for some could provide a sense of order and security. I find that as a parent, I have always been a fan of defining expectations and boundaries in anticipation of any disobedience. After having lived in Latin America where it is often easier to go with the flow of the general disorder, I can see how these types of strict limits could feel unnecessary and even confining.

It’s interesting to see how people across cultures manage boundaries in their most intimate abodes, their homes. Despite being back in the U.S. now for 6 years, I still have this instinctive need to lock the doors of my home even when I am inside and expecting guests. That simple lock on the door somehow makes me feel protected from outside dangers, which are plentiful in Venezuela where I learned to put up my guard. It still strikes me today how someone can walk up to the front door of an average American home without crossing through a walled gate, guard house, or fence. In Venezuela, all homes whether they are apartments or mansions are well fortified against intruders with high walls constructed of barbed wire and glass shards. The average key ring is the size of one’s fist since a whole series of keys are required to access the entry points of one’s home (parking garage, elevator, gate, front door, dead lock, etc.). It’s a sad reality in a country with so much violence.

Sometimes these fortifications remind me of the shuttered windows of Luxembourg homes that are often closed tightly, particularly at night, to protect the family’s privacy more so than their security. These outward barriers scream to me “keep out!” and as such, do not encourage a strong sense of community. When I reflect on my three years in Luxembourg, I’m sad to admit that I so rarely had the opportunity to enter a native’s home. I never had close Luxembourg friends and I had no contact at all with my neighbors, not even the obligatory wave and smile. By contrast, in Venezuela I felt instantly connected to everyone I encountered whether they were taxi drivers, shop keepers, or the neighbor walking her dog. People are open and out-going, which makes the visitor feel welcome and included almost immediately. Despite the physical fortifications for security’s sake, there were no visible relational boundaries in Venezuela.

As I watch my children who are now middle schoolers, I’m fascinated to discover that their generation has a completely distinct view of personal boundaries when interacting with others. Technology has certainly played a part in making them more isolated and anti-social than previous generations. I see it in how they interact (or don’t!) in face-to-face situations; there is no eye contact, they don’t speak in complete sentences, and their body language is awkward and often communicates disengagement. Online, however, these seemingly socially adept kids become the most out-going, clever, and focused specimens I’ve ever encountered. They can spend hours gazing at multiple screens on a variety of devices, multi-tasking all the while they interact with the world – playing Wii games, chatting, watching You Tube videos, and commenting on Instagram posts. Having to wait for the next upgrade is the only limitation in their indoor, technology-driven lives. They have never known corded telephones, dial up Internet, and remote-less TV.

Suddenly, I feel like an old person complaining about “kids today!” Like culture, boundaries are in constant flux, shifting as required to adapt to the needs and realities of the world in which we live and the relationships we share. The key to managing them effectively is to be flexible and perhaps leaving your passport at home.