Written at WRITE ON!

Written at WRITE ON! is a series of articles written by participants during a WRITE ON! workshop, and shared with the community.

This was written by Brian during a WRITE ON workshop on February 17, 2026.

Borders

There was a story in the paper today about the confusing traffic circle on the West Side of Buffalo, the one where its easy to take a wrong exit and end up on the other side of the Peace Bridge in Canada. It got me thinking again about borders. Not countries but borders. Imaginary lines on a map that we make real by deciding who gets to be on one side or the other.

I used to think about writing a book about borders. I’m not sure how serious I was about it, apparently not very.

There’s a lot of ways a border can look. It might look like nothing. It might be a river like the Niagara. It might just be a line that someone decided with or without the consent of the other people who were around at the time.

A natural border feels more real. But not as a restriction; more as a meeting place. If I’m meeting someone at the border of where my place ends and theirs begins, it would be nice if it was a bridge over a river, not a nondescript government facility or a duty-free store, or a toll booth. No weapons necessary.

Would anything really change if we didn’t care so much about borders, and who was on either side? If the borders really did open up, would life become more complex or less? Should we think it through until we have an entirely new bureaucracy to deal with, or should we just play it fast and loose? Borders used to be open, or unenforced, or a hazy in between, rather than a heavily policed contrivance. My question… I don’t even mean it in a political way. I just mean if people were free to cross from ‘there’ to ‘here’ they might. Or might not. They might stay. Or not. We can’t answer that question anymore.


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