Thinking Thursday

I Should Have Made a Full Stop at Albuquerque: When Survival Is Muscle Memory

Bugs Bunny always said he should’ve made a left turn at Albuquerque. Me? I made a full stop at a rural Washington highway and still ended up in a survival story. That’s the thing about being Black in America — even the most ordinary errand can turn into a test you never signed up for.

The Coast & The Forgotten Coat

It was late October on the coast, the Pacific Northwest showing off its moody season. The air was salty and misty, cold and wet. A wonderful fall day, the kind that makes you pull your coat tighter, breathe a little deeper, let the chill wake you up.

Here, things don’t really die in fall. They go gray. Softer. The splendor of summer drains away, leaves turn brown, the edges fray — but the landscape doesn’t collapse into death. It lingers in muted tones, as if the earth itself is exhaling. Gray is gentler than black. Straw still holds warmth even when it’s brittle, and the fields lay down to rest without vanishing.

I was tucked into that grayness at a women’s writing retreat. A circle of women holding space for words, truth, voice. A place to feel safe. To put down the weight of everything else.

And yet somehow, I had forgotten the one thing you’d think I’d remember: a coat. In late October. At the beach. My coat, of all things. I laughed at myself, shook my head, and decided I’d run to the store. It was supposed to be a quick errand, the kind of ordinary thing that doesn’t even register in memory.

The Stop

I was driving, music up, singing at the top of my lungs like I always do when I’m feeling good and the right song comes on. It was one of those carefree moments where you forget the rest of the world exists. Just me, my voice, and the road.

I made the turn. Maybe thirty seconds later, the patrol car was behind me. Lights on, the full flash. Out of nowhere.

I was next to one of those metal guardrails with barely any room to pull over. And the thing is — you don’t want to look like you’re running, but you also don’t want to make it hard for them. So I eased over as best I could, hugging the side so he’d have room to come up.

He walked up to the passenger side. Conceited, skeptical, but petulant, like he’d already decided something about me before he opened his mouth. He told me I hadn’t stopped at the sign. Said it was a rolling left. I knew exactly what he meant, but I also knew I had stopped. Still, I wasn’t about to argue with him on the side of a rural road.

He asked for license and registration. I handed him my license and dug in the glovebox for the rental agreement. My name matched, the paperwork matched, everything lined up. Still, he pressed questions about the rental. Suspicious, like the idea of me in this car didn’t sit right with him.

He took the paperwork and went back to his car. And that’s when my stomach dropped. That’s when survival kicked in.

I called Amy. FaceTime. Quick rundown: what happened, what was happening. And I propped her up right there so she could see. So she could witness.

When he came back, it wasn’t the same man who had walked up to my window. His tone was different. The gruffness softened. The skepticism cracked. I told him flat out — this is my wife, I called her so she can be a witness. And it was like suddenly we weren’t just two people on a road at night. He had to perform. He had to switch masks.

Survival Calculus

Looking back, I realize I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t pause, didn’t weigh options, didn’t ask myself if it was necessary. My hands just moved. Call Amy. FaceTime. Get a witness in the car with me.

That’s not a normal reflex. That’s not what people mean when they say “muscle memory.” That’s survival memory.

Because the truth is, this wasn’t just a stop about a left turn. This was the first time I’d been pulled over since George Floyd had been killed. Since Sandra Bland’s name had lodged itself permanently in my chest. And all of that history — both national and personal — lived inside me in that instant.

So when I reached for my phone, it wasn’t a decision. It was instinct. It was the understanding that I could not be alone with him. That my Black body on a rural Washington highway, in a car he already looked at sideways, needed another set of eyes on it. Needed someone who loved me to bear witness.

And it’s only later, when the adrenaline fades, that you can name it for what it was: survival. A refusal to risk becoming another story people debate online. A refusal to die for a “rolling stop.”

His Performance of Safety

When he came back to the car, it wasn’t like night and day. Just… brighter. Like he’d decided, Oh, okay, I’ll put on my friendly face now.

And I let him know what was up. I told him straight: this is my wife on FaceTime, she’s here to be my witness. Suddenly he’s backpedaling, reassuring me, trying to explain himself. “Why would you be afraid of me?”

Why? Because I know the names. George Floyd. Sandra Bland — and you can’t tell me they didn’t kill her. Philando Castile. Trayvon. The names we know, and the ones we don’t. Black people die in “routine traffic stops.” That’s why.

But he couldn’t see it. Or maybe he didn’t want to. He was young — mid to late twenties at best. And me? I’m Gen X, full-on. I own that. But to have a man young enough to be my nephew trying to soothe me like I was some skittish animal? Please.

It was giving Steve Irwin. That crocodile whisperer vibe. “Come on, little one. Come on. I won’t hurt you.”
Get the fuck out of here.

He wanted to believe he was one of the good guys. He wanted me to believe it too. But his reassurances weren’t for me — they were for him. To soothe his own conscience, to avoid being seen as the bad guy.

And I don’t want to make excuses for him being young. Because I had to know a lot when I was young. All Black kids do. We get two educations, at least. How to be ourselves, and how to mask ourselves to survive. And when you’re neurodivergent? Add another mask on top of that.

At one point, he even suggested I could do a ride-along with the department. As if proximity to his world could erase the danger in mine. He mentioned that they had Mexican officers, as if that was diversity enough, as if that should put me at ease. I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they might stick.

And maybe this is the moment to say it: I was driving a rental Mercedes. That fact alone made me suspect in his eyes. A Black woman behind the wheel of something sleek in Trump-country? That wasn’t just a car to him. It was a challenge to the order he thought he knew.

The Mercedes Factor

Here’s the thing: I like driving. Always have. And I happen to like renting cars because it gives me the chance to try something different, something I haven’t driven before. So when the option popped up for a Mercedes-Benz, I took it. Because every now and then, you just need to know.

God, what does that say about me? I don’t know. But between a GMC, a Mercedes, and a Mitsubishi, I’ll go German.

And look — I’m not well-to-do. I’m not pretending I am. But the thing is, they don’t know that. They see a Black woman alone in a Mercedes on a rural highway and they start writing their own story about me. Suspicion, judgment, all of it before I even open my mouth.

That’s what I felt in his questions about the rental paperwork. Not curiosity. Not routine. Suspicion. As though my very presence behind the wheel of that car needed extra explanation.

The Tokenism Reveal

So I asked him about people of color in the area. And the thing is, I already knew the answer. I’m familiar with that part of Washington. I know where people of color are and where we aren’t.

But I asked anyway, because I wanted to hear it from him.

His answer? “We have a Mexican.”

That was it. The full diversity report.

It was the obtuseness for me. The oblivion. The way he seemed not to understand what those words meant, or how they landed. As if naming a single person was enough to close the book on the conversation. As if that erased the isolation I already felt sitting there, pulled over, trying to hold my ground.

It was tokenism dressed up as reassurance. And it said more about him — and the world he lived in — than he realized.

The Aftertaste

In the end, I didn’t get a ticket. On paper, that’s the best-case scenario. But what I carried away from that stop was so much more than a fine ever could have cost me.

After I hung up with Amy, it hit me in waves. At first, I just kept driving toward the shopping center, holding it all in, trying to stay steady on the road. But when I finally parked, the flood came. I screamed. I shook. I cried. Not out of weakness, but because my body needed somewhere for all that wound-up energy to go. I had been coiled tight, running every survival script I knew, and suddenly I was still enough for it to break loose.

That release was fear and fury, exhaustion and relief all tangled together. Because the truth is, it could have gone another way.

And no, I don’t claim to know what was in that young officer’s head or his heart. But here’s the thing: I don’t get the luxury of assumption. I can’t afford to believe I’ll be safe just because someone says, “I’m one of the good guys.” History, memory, and the names of too many Black lives taken won’t let me gamble like that.

Closing — Back to Gray

By the time I drove back to the hotel, the mist along the coast had thickened, settling into its gray embrace. But I wasn’t ready to just collapse into bed and pretend nothing had happened. That stop had marked me. It was on my skin, in my chest, in my breath.

So I went downstairs and bought candles, incense, sage — every local product that called to me. I took my brand-new lighters and smudged the room, filled it with smoke and intention. I couldn’t let that energy cling to me.

I showered, washed slowly, deliberately. My evening ministrations became ritual — each gesture purposeful, each touch an act of cleansing. I was trying to wash away a layer of violation.

And the truth is, that feeling of violation isn’t foreign to me. It’s stitched into my DNA. To live as a Black woman in America is to carry it. But that night, I refused to carry his imprint home. I cleansed, I smudged, I prayed, and I made the room mine again.

Because for me, survival isn’t just about walking away alive. It’s about reclaiming myself after. It’s about returning to the gray, the softness, and refusing to let the hard flash of red and blue define me.💎

If this story resonates with you, share it. Stories like this show what safety really means — and who gets it, and who doesn’t. For some of us, survival isn’t luck. It’s muscle memory.

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