I’ve noticed, as I visit the major rest area towns along the highway, that they occur at very specific points: where one highway intersects another. One highway is not enough; at least two are needed for these towns to grow.

Even as I travel north toward San Francisco, folks are going east or west to Yosemite, or Bakersfield, Paso Robles, or Monterey.

The last time I traveled cross country, we came across a town called Grand Junction, Colorado. And what a grand junction it was! Folks were going to Denver, to Vegas, to Salt Lake City. It was magnificent. Farther east in Illinois, there’s the “Crossroads of America” and near there is the largest Cross in all of the US. The people say that folks will come in there and find Jesus and save their souls, all while driving their trucks or Harley-Davidsons either East-West along the 40 or North-South along the 41.

These intersections are special places. There’s a lot of chatter and sharing. But it’s powered by arrivals as well as departures. People come, meet, eat, leave.

I think of intersections, then think how that term has morphed into queerspace to become “intersectionality,” a term, I think likely emerged  from academics more comfortable with PowerPoint and Venn diagrams then they are with solitary road trips and two-for-one corndogs at the Flying J.

Intersectionality seems so cold. So stationary–this abstract thing we must arrive at, foster, and preserve. We travel to this promised land of “Intersectionality” and either stay there (and do what, I am not sure), or follow it somewhere to enact “Social Change.”

But what any traveller knows is that for an intersection to function as an intersection–travel most be unimpeded. Both toward and away. One must be free to come and to go. Otherwise, the intersection blocks motion in all directions. Because of this, these intersections are vibrant, vivid–but also vulnerable. An intersection that is not open is not an intersection. It is a disaster.

An intersection that expects people with different goals and destinations to somehow funnel into the the same route is not an intersection either. It is authoritarian and creepy.

A true intersection means we meet, often by chance. We enjoy ourselves, share some stories, heck, maybe even make some stories of our own.

But then, in the morning, we go on. We continue on whatever road we had been on before, hopefully rested and fed and grateful for an encounter we will always, always hold dear