In 2010, my resistance to crossing into the United States was still a quiet, low-grade hesitancy.

It wasn’t born of drama, but of that specific friction so many Canadians have since learned to name. The instinct to hold yourself a certain way at the border, as if your presence there is already a question you haven't yet been asked. You move as if pre-misunderstood, measuring what you say so it can’t be twisted into something bigger, stranger, or more ambitious than you meant.

But I went anyway, because Andy was in Los Angeles and the work we were doing—the long, stubborn, idealistic work of building what we called Fair and Free Portals—needed more than Skype calls and midnight emails. Ideas sound too clean from a distance. Sometimes you need the mess of real space to find out whether a thing actually breathes.