Land of the Father was the first short story I wrote in 2020. The first draft came easily and felt like a new direction that hadn’t been explored before. It’s a piece I’ve returned to often to redraft and refine.

Perhaps this is one of those stories that’ll never truly be completed, but it’s taught me the importance of revisiting your work to improve and critique it. Even years later.

The following is the first page of the story with recent edits.

He often drove with his hands off the wheel. An invitation for the pickup to drift from its lane into the oncoming headlights of the eighteen-wheelers that soared along the open desert highways. He lifted his hands with the approach of each truck. Closed his eyes. Waited for the impact. But the impact never came. The thunder of the trucks always rolled past the pickup’s cab, their taillights streaming into the void of night like comets receding in the rearview mirror.

It’d been weeks since he’d left home and struck out on the road, abruptly departing his life in the middle of an unremarkable day on a suburban street. The decision had been clear. Time to move on from what had once been so familiar. The comfort of the lounge in the evening hours. The tender outline of his wife’s face. The scent of lilac in the yard. The home had been a sanctuary. But since his return he’d seen it as something else. An artificial version of what the world really was. The violence he’d encountered had returned with him to the pristine space and made its home within the walls. It’d soured the air, stained the surfaces with the thick colors of viscera, and distorted the faces of his wife and baby son.

He’d been sure to pick a time where there’d be no risk of his family returning. His wife had headed on her weekly trip to the store to restock groceries. The baby rode shotgun. The errand was long enough to allow him to reach the interstate before they returned and safely put miles between himself and the moment his wife would realize he wasn’t coming back.

He hadn’t thought of much else besides how far he could get with the time available. Hadn’t thought of the repercussions of his decision. Hadn’t thought about the faces of his wife and son. Even now, far enough away, he still couldn’t bring himself to look at the creased photograph wedged between the few remaining bills he carried in his jacket pocket.

After a week of driving the station wagon he’d traded the vehicle for the old pickup. A deal made at a state line rest stop with a man who asked no questions and even spared some extra cash to go along with the trade. The pickup’s weathered color and rusted body looked like shit compared to the station wagon’s polished paintwork and gleaming wood panels. It’s what he’d wanted. A beat-up machine with a reliable engine. Something heavy duty that could roar down the highways and scent the air with burning oil. There was comfort in the deafening sound of the revving pistons and the mechanical odors that shrouded him on his course.

Breakfast was the only semblance of routine he kept to. Two boiled eggs. Two slices of buttered toast. A glass of fresh grapefruit juice. A cup of black coffee. He favored this meal in quiet diners, savoring the calm and dusty grace of elderly waitresses that doted on him like loving aunts.

He kept to the backroads as much as possible, though he thought it doubtful anyone would look for him this far from home. The small roads had taken him through countless forgotten towns. Across landscapes dotted with faded billboards advertising once famous roadside attractions. Each now shuttered. He passed the shells of these structures without stopping, seeing only children in the wreckage with beaded bracelets and woven blankets for sale. The sight of the children amid the stripped buildings haunted him long after passing. The towns were no better. Each a procession of boarded storefronts, empty streets, and aging inhabitants. Once vibrant burgs where the color of life had been drained, replaced by a thick atmosphere of oxidized metal and dust that invaded the pickup’s cab and left a ghost of each town across the interior in a thin film. Each night he wiped the residue from the surfaces with a strip of torn fabric that got dirtier the further he drove. A soiled memory recording the passage of time.

It’s been less than twenty-four hours since my wife’s disappearance from the Speedway in White Rock. There are still no leads. The police tell me to stay put at the hotel in Santa Fe.

With nothing else to do I prowl the building. Unable to sleep. I amble through the empty halls. The lobby. The hotel bar is shuttered but there’s a bottle of añejo in our room that I return to take large mouthfuls from with each loop of the property. Each loop that takes me back to the room still laced with her clothing and the faint scent of her perfume.

I head out into the night. Walk through snowfall on the plaza. I get it into my head that an old Silverado doing slow laps of the streets is surveilling me. I think I hear her voice on the mountain wind. Calling through the bare trees, the string lights, the swaying Ristras of dried red chiles.

The hispanic girl on duty as the night manager asks me how long I’ll be staying.

“Indefinitely.”

I’m a resident now until there’s news.

Until her return.

I’ll haunt the hotel. The plaza. The cafes and bars. A new ghost of the old town. Staying on in search of a great lost love.

The sweet scent of body odor fills the air of the cramped coffee cabin that stands at 8,200-feet. An aroma like wet dog undercuts the sweetness. But there’s no dog in sight. Despite frigid winds that persist across the thin film of ice covering the streets outside, patrons enter the establishment in bare feet, shorts, and threadbare Grateful Dead t-shirts. A procession of hardened mountain settlers attuned to the cold.

Bright sunlight shoots from between the rolling grey clouds that rise in dense plumes over evergreens clustered along the mountain peaks that ring the town. Intermittent rays scan the stained glass windows of the coffee shop, entering the space at erratic, beautiful interludes that cut through the rising steam like the long beam of a lighthouse beacon strafing the scenery.

Patrons come and go from this church-cabin bearing cups of coffee and small packs of narcotics that the baristas dispense discretely from behind the service bar like pharmacists of the high country. High in every sense of the word.

A bloodshot barista greets him at the register. “Are you here for the good drugs?”

“What other kind is there?”

“Many. But the good kind cost extra.”

“Drop some in my order. I could do with the laughs.”

“Want a bagel to chase that with, my guy?”

“Sure. Load it up with cream cheese. Spread it on heavy like fresh snowfall.”

He takes a seat among the congregation. Drinks a Shot in the Dark laced with the barista’s choice of hallucinogen at a small wooden table and watches as the gnarled grains form the face of Jesus. He listens to the lament of his lost faith and the poor personal hygiene of his fellow patrons from the Savior’s mouth. Listens to the tale of the man he could have been as the goatee and long hair morph with each sip of coffee coming closer to the bottom of the cup. Watches as the Savior’s face takes on new forms. Becomes his father. His grandfather. His forefathers and heroes going back through the ages. They speak in chorused tongues from the tabletop through the sweet scented atmosphere.

“What legacy do you continue?”

“My own legacy. Something new ‘n uninvented yet.”

“What are you creating to leave behind?”

“I’m creating myself. It’s all there is I can do.”

Sunlight cuts the stained glass again in a low pass. A moment in time reflecting upon the room and its inhabitants as kaleidoscopic shards that glisten through the scent of sweat and coffee and fresh cookies of high altitude.

A shimmering oil atop the last pool of coffee forms a vision of a different future. A reconciliation with all that was before and revelation of what’s to come arriving all at once in the final sip. A prophecy risen from the dregs of a drug-laced cup.

It’s been several months since I last posted writing on Substack. Frankly, I’ve been in a rut. So far as my writing is concerned.

Life this year has been spent between two countries. Again. The start of 2025 found me living back in the UK but feeling restless. The move back to my homeland was made in the hopes of creating new memories. Starting new chapters. Finding general newness. But moving back to your homeland after seven years spent building an entirely independent life for yourself in a new country comes at a cost. The saying is true: You can’t go home again.

Despite the familiarity of the country, I felt like a stranger moonlighting as a native. Reconnecting with friends, family, and the country that raised me felt shallow. As though I had missed out on too many changes and was now simply cast as an observer of the lives going on around me. Much remained the same. The home I grew up in still stood. The village green, pubs, telephone box, and fields of cows remained. London still hummed with its multitude of energies. Some good, some bad. The trains still ran - though with more delays.

A semblance of routine developed. Life continued to move. But the country just didn’t feel like home anymore. And so a desire to return to the US took root. A desire to return to wide open spaces, the grandeur of immense landscapes, the freewheeling nature of time, where at a moment’s notice you could be in your vehicle and away on the highways somewhere new where being a stranger often aided the experience instead of encumbering it. America gave me space to wander and explore ideas more freely than I had ever felt before first moving there at the end of 2016.

So back again. Over the sea in an airplane to Texas. A drive from Austin to the outskirts of Kaufman, a small town roughly thirty miles south east of Dallas. A week back-and-forth across the country to shop for vehicles and check in on new apartment leases. Then the final push. All belongings loaded into a U-Haul ridden across state lines to a new life in Colorado.

We’re coming up on five months since settling; into new jobs, new routines, new lives. Writing returned again after a hiatus during the time in the UK, where there felt to be too much going on to ever produce anything of note besides drunken prose on late train rides home and pre-dawn drafts over coffee at a kitchen table I ate at as a child. Now an adult. Conflicted.

Border Co. began in England. An outlet for the many pieces of writing compiled driving across America on different occasions between 2016 and 2023. Perhaps its origins were an act of mourning. A way to process the departure from a life that once felt like an exciting new beginning. There was a part of me that felt returning to England was an act of defeat. A time to turn home and take stock of where life was going, or not going, and decide on what was next. At the time, Border Co. was envisioned to be an outlet for writing and collaborations, reaching out to makers to create capsule collections of products suited to the rambling life on the road I’d embraced through much of my time in the US. This idea was outlined in the first post of this Substack, The Crossing: Welcome to Border Co. and expanded on in The List: Collaborations at Border Co.

But as time’s gone on, I’ve accepted I have no interest in pushing more products out into the world. No matter how worthy their intentions. Overconsumption is a scourge of our time and there’s something inauthentic about playing a part in hocking wares for personal fulfillment. There are many, many excellent independent makers out there already. Go out and find them. Support them. Border Co. will remain the name of this Substack, speaking to the fulfillment found crossing new landscapes, hearing new stories, and seeking to understand my place in all of it. But the focus now will solely be on producing writing under this name.

Moving to Colorado has opened up another window to writing, dedicating my free time to it all over again since the first major rediscovery that happened in 2020. But that rekindling also brings confusion on where this creative outlet has a home. It’s been a slow process getting back in the saddle and submitting work to publications. By focusing on that instead of regular posts on Substack, the rhythm of posts on Border Co. has been thrown and I’m left wondering what matters most. I think it’s to just keep writing; here, out in the world, late night, early morning. Whenever and wherever possible, regardless of if it’s any good or not.

Anxiety over every technicality of grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling has often encumbered my willingness to share more work. Fearing the reader will seek out the imperfections rather than any meaning contained within. This piece was written as an act to break a habit. Of lethargy. Of tentativeness. Of insecurity. Perhaps it’s time to embrace judgement. Our accessible outlets for sharing creativity (social media and other online networks) often feel like a popularity contest, where your work has to arrive fully formed, perfect, and marketable to a mass audience. That in itself deters many from sharing more. Failing to see that your work resonates can be debilitating.

So all this is to say: if you’re still here, your readership is most appreciated.

To any other writers struggling to find their path. Just spit it out for yourself and keep moving forward.

Be authentic.

I’ll try to do the same.

In my youth, I lived for a time in a place called Langtry. Back when I worked on the railroad that cut its course over that barren scene.

On my rare days off I’d go down to the river that snaked past town. A thin sliver of water that ran through a shallow wash thick with brush. You could throw a rock clear across that stretch into Mexico.

On the American side of the river you could find the names of visitors scratched into the rocks along the banks and up into the border of town. Luis. Jose. Felipe. Wether they stayed or went back to their side I could never tell. But they’d left their mark.

I’d head down to that river with a cane and line on the high water days and fish. Maybe boil up a handful of coffee grounds in a tin can and fill my mouth with the dirty stuff. Just me on my own down there. Taking in the view and coating my teeth in that rich dirt. Taking in the view and not much else. Never caught any fish you see.

In high summer I’d still head down, though all that’d be left of that river was a trail of cracked earth with trash scattered here and there. Cast offs from one life or another. An old pot. Maybe a wrench. A can or two. Seems plenty of people went down or across that way though I never saw them. Maybe the river’d carried those relics from somewhere else in a flash flood. I never knew nor found out.

Only time I ever saw another person down there was the time I found the body in the brush.

The lawmen raised hell trying to determine whose jurisdiction a brown-skinned fellow down by the border river belonged to. They didn’t seem too concerned about a dead Mexican. Just the paperwork and keeping their boots clean.

Remember them standing in a circle away from the body, one or two turning to spit their dip in its direction from time to time. Didn’t seem they wanted to get that thick juice on the ground near them. But over by the body was fine for them.

Remember staying up late that night at my shack. Used to be a whole family of stray cats that lived under the beams where it was sometimes cool. Stayed up late on the porch stroking their smooth fur and watching a waning crescent cross the sky. That’s got something to do with wisdom or some such thing. Figured now I maybe got some of that.

I can still remember the cold air of the desert. The smooth fur of the cats beneath my palms like liquid. The distant fires burning across the river. A feeling of deep shame.

Sometimes I still wake at night dreaming of the flies that covered the body. In those moments it’s like I can still smell it. On those nights my wife Camila comforts me and I try to forget that day. I think of all the good things that came after. I think of Camila.

Time has not been kind to Langtry. Perhaps that’s for the best.

There’s a high school girl in a bedroom somewhere in this town that slides her dresser along the wall to retrieve a secret diary laced with traces of cocaine. An old DVD of her favorite Disney film plays in a loop on a small TV that lights the room in pastel shades of flickering light as she runs her tongue across her gums and listens to the melody of singalong songs.

In an all-American diner, heavyset men in pale blue oxford button-down shirts stride to their stools and gulp cups of watery coffee laced with bourbon poured from silver hip flasks slipped from their slack pockets. Condensation pools at the base of refrigerated OJ glasses and the waitress recommends them the corned beef hash with over easy eggs. The slurp of spiked coffee is rhythmic. Interspersed at steady intervals between illicit talk of mistresses and college girls half their age.

Californian sunlight cuts through the blinds and glistens on the silverware’s skin of grease and your favorite brand of hot sauce that rests alongside the A1 and Heinz and single-use pots of half-and-half and vanilla creamer. Sugar is king in this venue, seeping into every dish and add-on you could imagine. Diabetes must be rife amongst the clientele. Someone puts a dollar in the vintage jukebox to play a song and the melody of the old 45 swims with the spatter of bacon and eggs frying in the kitchen.

The girl in the bedroom of flickering light lights a cigarette and watches the lazy trail of smoke rise smoothly from its tip, up until the rhythm of the ceiling fans chops it through. The house is quiet at this time. A breeze from the outside world carries itself through her window. A stirring of desert air that brings tales from the mountains that rest beside the luxurious suburban homes and palm-lined highways running their course across the landscape like thick black veins.

A painting on the diner’s wall shows a 50s scene of teens dancing between the gleaming chrome of cars parked in the lot of a drive-in. The boys wear varsity jackets. The girls wear saddle shoes and gingham and polka dot dresses and seem full of joy. It’s a wholesome scene to stare at in the early hours amid the secret lives surrounding you. But you wonder. How could any time be so innocent?

Dawn.

It’s the waking hours of the day, when most townsfolk still slumber in their beds. He walks the borders of the town square, listening to chickadees in the trees whose song is like blossom on the breeze. His boots trace a solitary route as the beat of each step echoes back off the brick storefronts. He makes a full orbit of the square, past four archways of elk antlers that chart his course in the rising light with all the accuracy of a compass. He stops inside a coffee house pouring hot java into waiting cups. Hot coffee and cold mornings are some of the simple pleasures he lives for.

There are two sides to his life. One, here in this moment trading small talk and sampling connection as he waits for the steam to rise from a cup filled with freshly brewed black oil. The other, out at the fringes of normal lives, where he untethers from the restless rhythm that pounds the pace of life. Where he smells the cold air rising up the mountain and the scent of saddled leather blends with the sweet balsam of the tree-line. That place where the world unfurls and the Tetons pierce the horizon like immense shards daring to tear through that great spread of silken blue.

Dusk.

Their hands rest upon each others shoulders as they slow shuffle to the band. Denim on denim. There’s a richness to the scent of her hair that he swims in as another bar room brawl erupts behind them in a maelstrom of shouts and spilled booze and sweat and laughter, because it’s always the same two old buddies that start the fight. They fight over the girl they both missed their chance with back when they were young and the town was a place where everyone knew everyone. She lives in Texas now. A grandmother with a loving husband and wonderful grandchildren that ask her what she was like as a little girl.

The bars are lined with silver dollars that a drunk paws at lazily as they eke out sips from their shot glass. The resin-coated coins glisten beneath a surface gnarled like tree bark from those hoping to scrape the riches into a waiting pocket. Passing a row of hunched men clustered at the bar like horses in a storm, she leads him out into the night and through the neon glow of the sidewalk. Two atoms drawn together for the night. The final steps of their evening, looking up into the veil of space hanging above the stairs to her motel room, are like ascending to the stars.

Midnight.

They slumber peacefully. At ease with the strangeness of first encounters.

A payphone rings out through the crisp air on the square. Another voice reaching out through cross-country wires seeking a connection.

You visit that town again often. On a day you took your first steps out into the great nature of the north and your boot treads clutched at snow and gravel and high country dirt. Where you perched beside creeks swept by glacial air and watched torrents of water carve their course through Precambrian rock. A tract of silver shone a guiding path for you back through the forests into town, where a smiling waitress served you rare steaks and complimentary drinks on account of your exotic accent.

In that town, you walk a motel’s parking lot talking to a girl you’d met in Texas, discussing the day and pondering the future. A neon sign above the office guides you to the empty road and a used car dealership on the opposite side of the street that must be going out of business. Each vehicles’ dash is piled high with crumpled Pall Mall and Lucky Strike cartons like faded chapters from their former owners’ lives. It’s rare to spot a car there without at least one broken headlight or flat tire.

The cheapest room in town offers a home for the night. The price buys you a chamber filled with the remnants of old stories; cinder block walls pockmarked by bullet holes and mirrors smeared with streaks of old lipstick. It’s a space where you bathe in the flickering blue light of endless true crime shows and dream of constellations that whisper your future. You time travel in sleep, prospecting countless threads that lead off before you. Like looking into the last streams of daylight cutting through the atmosphere; each atom holding onto and letting go of a piece of time in an instance as you gaze at that spectral glow.

Time travel is risky. Easy for some to lose themselves to nostalgia. But still you ride the loop that circles through past, present, and future realities. Exploring different versions of yourself on the way to something new.

We drive down from the mountains, riding the summer air that carries the scent of pine canopies through the car’s open window. The road ripples. We steer the wave and take the exit like we’re rolling over rapids, quick and clean and smooth as fish slipping the stream.

The tarmac of downtown stirs the air above it like the surface of a shallow pool and we wade through in our uniforms of stiff denim and faded flannel watching a parade of flags rustle in the rising heat.

We’d ridden to the sun and back and lived to tell the tale, reminiscing about the days just hours behind us as though they were the making of the men we’d become, returning from an odyssey neither one of us had foreseen.

There’s an audience of stuffed animal heads from the decades before our arrival lining the wall above the liquor bottles of a downtown bar, observing us drink our midday beers. Weary from a dawn departure, the cold suds revive our spirits. That gallery of glass eyes glistens in the sunlight that streams across the walls as the old door opens and closes with each guest stopping by for a moment; a mix of locals that’ve mined their lives in this town and travellers passing through between the coast and the inland ranges.

Down the street, a store sells dead men’s clothes and castoffs from other lives whose ghosts stir beneath my fingertips as they trace the dusty garments and objects piled into the cramped space that sells live bait in the back.

We are here. In a small town on a summer day that sears its setting into memory. A place you can visit any time you like but never truly go back to again.

Slamming the hot metal and sealing ourselves back into our ride, we set off from the curb back up to the highway, catching a fresh breeze that we ride out the state towards the coast and the new lives waiting to be lived.

It’s on a balmy late summer morning in September that the rental car rolls easily over the neighbourhood roads of Richardson, a popular suburb just north of Dallas. The vehicle weaves through residential roads lined with well-kept ranch-style homes bordered by manicured lawns. Sunbeams cut their path through the windshield and across the steering wheel with each lazy turn onto a new street. Tom Petty plays from the radio, the songs woven with the ebb and flow of lawnmower engines resonating from the yards of passing households on this quintessential Saturday in North Texas.

The journey to Richardson is the culmination of a dialogue that started in July of 2024 when, in the early stages of mapping out what exactly Border Co. was to be, I first reached out to the designer Crespatrick de los Reyes to explore a potential collaboration, merging his label’s design sensibilities with my desire to create a customised garment. That dialogue stretched out into a trans-Atlantic email chain lasting several months, discussing everything from fabric and dimensions, to pocket configuration and fastenings.

De los Reyes and I were introduced through a mutual friend at the tail end of 2022. It was at a time where I was working for a small retailer in Dallas, organising a number of store socials to meet independent makers local to the market. We bonded over a shared interest of clothing focused on longevity, not seasonal trends. The following year I invited de los Reyes back to the store for a pop-up showcasing his designs under his C. Patricio label, bringing together clients and friends from the community to explore his garments while we served drinks and generally made sure all attendees were having a good time.

Looking back, that event encapsulated a lot of the DNA I wanted to bring to Border Co., though I didn’t know it at the time. Bringing people together from different backgrounds with a shared interest in learning about each other’s stories and pursuits.

De los Reyes developed his design skills working in the denim industry of Los Angeles while dreaming of one day starting his own label. It was during his time in the industry that he would encounter the material his label would become most associated with: denim shrink blankets.

Shrink blankets are a cast off from the denim industry, large sheets of material that are washed to measure the shrinkage of each denim being evaluated for use in production. Once washed, these sheets become waste sent for disposal. It was in these blankets that de los Reyes saw an opportunity to utilise the material for his label, up-cycling them into his own designs and once again giving them purpose.

Obtaining pallets of wash blankets to experiment with for his first designs, de los Reyes found the confidence to officially launch his own label in 2017. A year later he relocated to Dallas, gradually developing his craft as a designer while working out of his garage studio in the city’s suburbs. Leveraging his professional experience and merging this with inspiration from his Filipino American heritage, de los Reyes established a reputation for unique takes on classic garments, combined with a recycle and reuse mentality not often championed in the clothing industry.

One of the pieces that has become a signature of the C. Patricio label is the Saddle Pocket Jacket. Inspired by the Texas landscape and the vision of his clothing existing in specific locations, de los Reyes envisioned the jacket as an ideal garment for the modern rancher, someone working on the land while backlit by the Texas sun.

Referencing the essentials outlined in the essay, The List: Collaborations at Border Co., the jacket seemed the perfect starting point for a custom design, bringing us back around to that fine September morning in Richardson where this essay starts.

After parking the rental car at the curb and heading up to the de los Reyes residence, the door opens and out bounds Corduroy the family dog to greet me. In the air-conditioned cool of the home the scent of incense lingers in the lounge. De los Reyes and I catch up on life as Corduroy circles, leaning against my legs for attention. Before long we step out and walk around to the garage studio, where almost every piece for the C. Patricio label is patterned, cut and sewn - the label’s jeans, launched in 2023, are manufactured in carefully chosen workshops in Los Angeles.

Several industrial sewing machines line a wall, shrink blankets of all shades are stacked high upon shelves and beneath the movable worktop where de los Reyes spreads the pattern for the C. Patricio x Border Co. Jacket we’ve worked on, unofficially referred to as the FM-Road Jacket after the farm-to-market roads that trace their way across the counties in and around my former home in Texas. Sometimes referred to as ranch-to-market roads, these roads can be found across Texas, connecting rural and agricultural areas to market towns. For a jacket designed for wear from ranch to road trips, bar hopping, campsites, and everything in between, the reference felt in-tune with the evocative landscape that inspired the jacket’s design, speaking to de los Reyes’ personal story and my own.

For the collaboration, we started with the basic design of the C. Patricio Saddle Pocket Jacket, a garment with an elegant simplicity, capable of blending into a variety of settings. A favourable shade of blue was selected from the many shrink blankets de los Reyes had available, then adjustments were made to the jacket’s measurements, slimming the dimensions down and adding side adjustor tabs to allow a wearer to choose between a boxier cut or cinched silhouette depending on their build, the weather, or working conditions. The finished adjustments gave the jacket a fitted look that still allowed for good range of motion.

Then came the fun stuff.

Keeping the original design’s iconic large, bellowed saddle pockets on the exterior, two internal drop pockets were added to accommodate notepads, work gloves, a camera, and generally all the stuff I want to carry without having to use a bag. There’s an added bonus that the pockets are big enough to stow a couple of cans of beer in should the need arise.

With the jacket’s front fastening already consisting of Talon snaps instead of buttons, a modern western-inspired yoke was added as a further homage to pearl snap shirts. Rear seams were also added to tailor the jacket’s shape and as a reference to classic denim jackets like the Lee 101J and the Wrangler 124MJ.

Finally, the most complicated customisation (logistically): the collar. Being a fan of the contrast collars found on the Carhartt Detroit Jacket, Lee Storm Rider and most ranch-ready outerwear, I knew I wanted something that would reference these designs and add character to the jacket, but didn’t want to go with the traditional corduroy used in other design. Having worked for a brand that sources leather from across the world, I was able to get in touch with a wholesaler in California and acquired a hide of American Bison Leather in a rustic tobacco shade. Once this hide arrived with de los Reyes it was reversed, using the rough side of the leather as the visible material for the collar. This type of leather is know as roughout leather and is used extensively in western wear for its durability. It’s not only a common material for cowboy boots, clothing and accessories, but is also favoured for use in wildland firefighters boots for the material’s ability to hold up in the toughest conditions.

Finally, thread was chosen for the jacket’s stitching that matched the tobacco colour of the roughout collar, completing the design. The finished garment, a merging of de los Reyes’ design principles and the Border Co. desire for versatility and durability in the garments worn when undertaking a journey, is an entirely custom piece, perfectly suited to heavy wear on the ranch or road.

Motivated by a passion for handcrafted goods, slow production, and a respect for de los Reyes’ design philosophy and craft driven by heritage, the first collaboration from Border Co. has been built on a solid foundation.

The C. Patricio x Border Co. Jacket (The FM-Road Jacket) is available in a limited production run of just six jackets, with the first made being the one collected from Richardson that September morn’ and worn throughout recent travels across the US and UK. Each jacket is patterned, cut, and sewn to order in Texas.

For jacket images, pricing and enquiries, please head to the Border Co. Instagram.

Back in 2021, I set out for a week on the backroads of Texas as part of the writing process for a short story I was developing. The trip was an effort to explore the story’s protagonist by inhabiting their journey across the landscapes used as inspiration for the story’s settings. Without getting too deep into the narrative, the central focus was a man abandoning his life, drifting from place to place on a winding journey away from his family and home in an effort to escape hidden traumas and the burden of fatherhood.

Heavy themes? Perhaps. But it created a good excuse to load a bag up with only the essentials that I needed and head on the road, throwing this minimal selection into my truck along with a few CDs and a map to guide the journey. I wanted to get off my phone until I returned home and just enjoy the chance to drive, explore the landscape, let thoughts drift, and write.

The plan was simple. Head south west to the town of Marathon (an 8-hour drive away), then snake my way back over the following days avoiding the interstates as best I could. The journey into my protagonist’s world found me standing in the glow of my headlights beside desert railroad tracks at midnight, walking empty streets in the pale light of dawn, sitting with my thoughts in quiet motel rooms, sipping red eye coffee with bottles of Topo Chico on the side, spreading the map across the hood beside desolate highways, and hiking into the borderlands between Texas and Mexico.

The return journey took me through Langtry, Del Rio, Nordheim, Cuero, Lockhart, and finally home, 35 miles south east of Dallas. Along the way I thought often about the joy of travelling light, with just the bare bones to get me by.

After my last trip out to Far West Texas at the start of 2024, as I thought more about the project that became Border Co., I revisited the idea of travelling light and drafted what I felt were the most essential items for those long stretches across the country. The absolute minimum I could leave home with. That scrawled list included:

Jeans / Belt / T-Shirt / Jacket / Shirt / Boots / Wallet / Notebook / Pen / Toothbrush / Deodorant / Underwear / Sunglasses / Baseball cap / Bag

While there was room for extras, it seemed a good snapshot of the most important elements to pack for a road trip.

As I continued to flush out exactly what I wanted to do with Border Co., the scope of ideas began to stretch beyond simply a writing project. I started to think about using the list as a springboard to connect with friends and other makers to create custom items as part of a capsule collection. Goods for the road. Trusty versions of items on the list that were versatile enough to handle a week road tripping, hikes on the trail, evenings hopping dive bars and dance halls, and the stress of being repeatedly bundled up and thrown into a duffle bag or backpack.

There are plenty of brands out there producing these items already, so why not just buy from them and be done with it? In many cases I do, but from time to time it’s hard to find the exact item you’re looking for.

The list resurfaced around summer last year. I’d taken to searching for a new denim jacket, browsing the many offerings from trusted brands with rich heritages producing this garment. I used to have a vintage Lee 101J that was almost perfect, but a little too cropped, and a great unlined Carhartt Detroit jacket I’d outgrown and sold. Somehow, I wanted something that was a little of both of these garments. Something that fit my needs and that I felt more connection to compared to buying another used or new jacket. As a big fan of the versatility and durability of outdoor clothing, workwear and western wear, living in a rotating wardrobe that mainly consists of these items, I wanted to bring these influences together and explore the meeting point where something new could emerge.

It was here that the idea for the first Border Co. collaboration blossomed.

I’ve been fortunate to meet unique brands and makers during my time in retail, building long-lasting friendships with many of them. It was thanks to this exposure that I’d first met the maker that came to mind for Border Co.’s first item. We struck up a dialogue through email and through a long chain of messages back-and-forth across the Atlantic, slowly brought Border Co.’s first collaboration to life.

As an ongoing thread of this Substack, Border Co. collaborations look to tell stories about and inspired by their makers, their craft, and their product. Amid a retail landscape dense with throwaway items and brands pushing goods purely for profit, there are plenty too that are focused on quality, building slowly, looking at the long-term. It’s these brands and makers I’m drawn to most because of the individuals at their heart.

Referencing The List and looking to develop unique versions of these items, collaborations will only occur when the opportunity arises with the right reasoning and the right maker. They will never be mass manufactured, or made for the sole purpose of making money. They’ll be created for those who see their merit and want to bring a reliable item with a story into their lives to become part of their own narrative. Their sales will be used as a means to support independent makers and generate donations for causes as outlined in the first post I ever wrote - The Crossing: Welcome to Border Co. Importantly, they will be made in the pursuit of connection and community.

The first Border Co. collaboration, now road tested, will be introduced in the coming weeks through posts about its maker and how the design came to be.

I look forward to sharing it with you.

- J. Bowyer

Tree limbs stretch across the road above us like interlaced fingers as we drift down US Route 1 towards Main Street. The canopy casts an even green glow down on the car until it abruptly parts to reveal grey skies and views of rigging rocking on the water that borders the town.

The room we shed our belongings into is in a motor lodge perched at the crest of a hill on the opposite side of town, its white buildings laid out around the perimeter of an expansive parking lot with a pool at its centre. A partially deflated red and white rubber ring floats on its surface like a fading memory of summer. Out back of the building we’re in lies miles of dense woodland. A small window beside the bathroom looks out onto a cluttered view of trees and gives the disquieting sensation of being stranded in some uncharted wilderness miles from civilisation. The only way to overcome this feeling is by opening the door of the room to stare out across the parking lot towards the pool with its diminishing inflatable and the road of lazy traffic beyond leading back into town.

Later at a local taproom, we listen to a woman insist the barman tell her his name, which he’s hesitant to give out as “people’ll be calling it across the bar, the street, in parking lots. You name it.” She hassles him with this request between pours until he finally caves and whispers it into her ear. The moment he heads for the other end of the bar her shrill voice screams out “MIKE!" Can I see the specials again?” She’s too many drinks deep and her announcement resonates around the room with enough volume to let the whole establishment know Mike’s name.

Mike hustles while we pound local brews. Mike tells us that ‘86 was a good year when he checks my driver’s license. Mike clears up the mess when a drunk tourist spills his entire glass of beer across the counter. Mike’s reading glasses sit atop his head when he deals the drink and lower over his eyes to ring the tabs. They flip up and down rhythmically as he works as though hinged to his head by a hidden piece of hardware.

The wind carries a chill through to our bones as we walk beside the water’s edge, where we stare out across its surface into historic homes on the opposite shore, past the passing sailboats returning from day trips along the coast. The windows from those homes exude a warmth that glows through the blue light deepening into night.

Come morning the motel parking lot is thick with fog that’s been a staple of each daybreak in the state. It thickens around us as we head down the hill towards the harbor in search of breakfast. Buildings, spires, and the masts of ships materialise slowly through the atmosphere like spirits called to a seance. The ghosts of last night’s town summoned back to us through the morning haze.

Breakfast is biscuits and gravy with bacon, washed down by black coffee and a can of Moxie that the waitress gives us a history lesson on as we pass it back and forth between our lips. We share the dregs on one final stroll along the streets watching market vendors set up stalls in the amphitheater.

Packing the car up back at the motel, a young film crew is setting up a shot in the parking lot. As we pull the car out of its spot and head towards the road, we see a girl in nothing but a white dress shirt covered in blood appear in the open doorway of a room and can only hope she’s part of the production as we pull out onto the road to begin the journey south.

a.m.

It’s before 5:00 when we start the long crawl up the mountainside, rolling along fresh blacktop, a yellow strip guiding the way. Broken boulders line the borders of the road like sentries between the manmade surface and the unchecked nature lying in the vast darkness beyond. Even the full beam of the headlights can barely cut the atmosphere at this hour. Without their light upon the snaking road and the faint glow of the instrument panel we’d be completely untethered. Adrift on the ascent.

She looks out past the windshield and roadside boulders, down towards the rippling blanket of ocean far below, its great presence a shifting mass of reflected moonlight and stars.

We wait for the sunrise at the summit with figures dotted across the mountainside like pilgrims gathered for prayer. We stand on our pedestal of pink granite in the shrouded gloom, braced against the persistent chill of night air that still sweeps up across the rock, through the seams and openings of loose clothing and against our skin. We tremble in the brisk fog, anticipating the dawn. The brief moments where morning light breaks through the cloud summons an energy in the watchers, who will the mist to disperse and reveal the glory of an American daybreak over the jagged Eastern shore.

It never truly arrives, but shafts of sunlight tempt us through each passing hour.

Scattered applause rise from the crowd when a group of broad-winged hawks are spotted swooping across the scenery. Their presence lifting our spirits within the wrapped cloud of this mountaintop morning.

It’s only after we depart the summit and start our descent that we’re greeted by the full brightness of the cresting sun across the distant slopes, illuminating a quilt of early autumn foliage and the mirrored lakes below.

p.m.

Below a perch for fire spotting at another mountain’s peak, leaves of flame burn into the cold season. Latticed metal steps clang beneath feet and echo amid the birdcall caws and cricket chirps. Sat upon the granite to stare at ocean horizons and thatched islets across that open coveland. Then, down trod feet that ache after this blessed day of trail and pine needle and scramble on primal stones. Sunset comes and the peaks snatch the last light from this day.

You’re spread out as best you can in a revolving lounge chair that’s set before the fireplace in your room. The ornate brickwork stretches from floor to ceiling and alludes to being an original feature, though an electrical cable snaking into its base betrays the fact it is in fact entirely electrical. Regardless, it conveys the rustic aesthetic the hotel shoots for. You survey the drink in your hand, holding it up against the undulating light of a faux flame lamp on the mantelpiece. The bartender downstairs definitely over-poured. You count four fingers in the glass instead of two. More than enough to hold you over for a few more hours until you put this day to bed.

The rental car had coasted into town on fumes, rumbling over the cobbles of Old Port towards your hotel before coming to a stop perfectly beside the valet stand outside the main entrance. You’d explained your predicament to the young guy in a navy varsity jacket with yellow leather sleeves who’d then offered to siphon gas from another guest’s car in exchange for a few extra bills in his tip. You’d shook on the deal. “She’ll be all ready for you by check-out tomorrow.” You’d thought it strange how cars tend to take on female identity. Just like boats. You’d watched as he’d steered the rental over to the hotel lot and slipped it between two cars with out-of-state plates. You’d thought hard about what your car should be called.

You’d headed down towards the waterfront looking for a beer, finding your way through the doors of a bar perched on a pier that’d been recommended by a former lumberjack you’d met before leaving Boston; a man with forearms as broad as any tree he’d ever felled. While his recommendation hinted the place could provide a good time it’d said nothing of the thick stench of dead lobsters and fish you’d need to cut through to gain entrance. That oily smell secreting from old rope and wood hung heavy on the pier, draped upon it like a veil. Pushing through was like navigating a dense fog populated by the weed-smoking busboys that lingered behind the seafood restaurants, along a route marked by dried-up tuna fins nailed to the pilings like warnings to those swimming beneath the waves.

Out back on the bar’s deck, the spirit of an old sailor had taken up residence in the body of a gull perched atop the wheelhouse of a partially sunken trawler. It catcalled the waitresses in its coastal tongue and eves-dropped on the conversations of your fellow patrons. A group of baby boomers at the next table spoke at length about late honeymoons and an alcoholic invalid father. “I got him down to half a litre bottle of the cheapest white wine. I’d buy one, pour half out, then add water to top it up.” You sat for a few hours with seasonal beers and a plastic basket of fish that tasted better than it looked, listening to the ways they tricked the father into drinking less.

After sundown you’d passed from block to unknown block, searching for another dive bar but failing to find one. In the end, you’d stopped to sit with those sleeping rough along the street you’d wound up on away from downtown. You’d shared a communal quart of liquor being passed around the small circle of faces like a bottled flame that imbued each holder with a private warmth. There’d been a show of dressed-up out-of-towners and squad cars rolling through that thoroughfare. Lost souls new to the city and those locals out in force to guard them; a procession running at steady intervals through the bottle’s rotations until the last drop was drained. You’d spared a few dollars for the next round, bid your companions well, then headed on your way.

In the hotel room you can still smell the old lobster meat of the docks on your shirt. Some poor individual in an alley outside gags loudly enough you can hear it through the sealed double-glazed windows. You can only assume it’s because of the same stench working its way into their body as it had yours.

You sit and sip, thankful the hotel bartender had poured your glass with a lazy eye to the measure. You’d thought of ordering a beer to tagalong with the whisky but thought better of it upon seeing how much brown liquor had made its way into the tumbler.

You ruminate about the life of the bartender beyond the borders of the hotel. For the sake of the narrative you christen him Richard.

So, Richard’s been working the counter long before your arrival this evening. There’s something in his don’t-give-a-shit demeanour when you first set eyes on him that told you creating a memorable ambiance for hotel guests wasn’t high on his agenda. This worked in your favour. In between the couples preparing to swap room keys with fellow travellers, he spotted your lone cause lingering at the bar and made his way over. Room number and signature down on his pad, he’d remarked on the measure poured saying you looked like you needed it, before moving off into the long hours still to go before he could stamp his timecard.

Perched on the lounge chair in your room, you wonder about Richard’s life. You wonder if he’s happy. You wonder if he dreams of something more than the routine he has. You raise your glass to Richard and down the contents.

Come morning you collect your car from the valet, the engine now running smoothly on its illicit donation. You notice his varsity jacket gives off a heavy scent of gasoline and hope to God no-one lights a match in his vicinity any time soon as you pull away from the curb.

You open the windows as you leave town to clear the smell, thinking to yourself how it might void the rental warranty and how you still hadn’t named the car.

Nine hours on the backroads and forgotten highways to reach this point. A speck on the map. Nine hours in a beat-up truck that keeps rumbling on across potholed roads. Don’t let the rusted panels and peeling clear coat fool you. The steel chassis still holds strong and’ll get you where you’re going. Through dried up towns of shuttered stores and abandoned gas stations. Across the crater of a meteorite that blots the land south of Fort Stockton.

An old couple in the adjoining room leaves their TV on through the night. A channel that airs nothing but old game show reruns. Voices of deceased hosts permeate the thin panels of wood mounted to the walls. They drift through the darkness of your room and meld with your dreams. And in the haze of bourbon-soaked sleep you commune with them, until a feeling of disquiet drives you from your bed and out into the solace of the night.

Down by the railroad tracks you clutch yourself to warm your blood. Your torso wrapped in the blanket lining of your father’s old barn coat. You wander along the tracks that stretch out into the desert. Out into a blackness that swallows the dim light cast from town. You walk a tightrope along the steel pressed beneath your boots until it starts to tremble.

A beacon of light burns out in the desert, moving smoothly through the night. A silver-eyed snake baring down on you until it tears from the darkness with the scream of metal on metal. Sparks flare the air with embers of hellish light that glisten in the eyes of men perched between the cars. Wild faces as creased and cracked as sun-baked leather from a life upon the rails. A group of spirits riding this metal procession through sleeping towns until it meets the ocean.

The locomotive blares its horn back from the mountains hidden in the darkness. Back towards you like a ghost calling through time. Back towards where you stand in this moment. Alone in the rubble and sand like the last man on earth.

Friday Night Lights burn bright as stars inside the high school stadium, funded so generously by local businessmen that not a play goes by without announcements brought to you courtesy of local car dealerships, funeral homes or roofing companies.

Rows of fathers in the bleachers scream support and strategic direction as though they were on the front lines of a battlefield, while, a few rows back from that ruckus, a more sedate set of spectators scoop chips thickly coated in cheese sauce towards their waiting maws.

Down upon the field of play there’s a boy whose only thoughts are of the girl he wants to go with. She’s one of the group that cheers for the team in sequinned cowboy hats and dirty white roper boots that’ve been handed down from girl to girl through the ages. She hovers in his mind with her auburn hair and freckles and pale eyes. With her there he can’t get his head in the game. Snap after snap’s fumbled as he wrestles with her smile.

The fathers are losing the energy they’d bristled with moments before until another boy, a wide receiver, leaps with balletic grace and intercepts an errant throw down field towards the end zone. He stretches all fibres of his frame in that crucial moment that could make or break the game.

“All day! All day!” the paternal chants call with the fire back in their hearts. It burns for youth.

The band strikes up again, blasting the theme from a famous film franchise. The team shares their name with it. Despite the regularity of this rousing rendition, it’s taken far too long to form a connection between the two and you feel disconnected from the crowd cheering so ecstatically each time the brass and drums kick in.

Everything about the game operates at a professional level—the slow motion replays, the coaching team in logo’d polo shirts and khakis, the teens chugging Gatorade and reading play cards, raging at the bad throws, the interceptions, the sacks, with pure vitriol.

Over on the horizon past the goal posts, far beyond the clamour of the crowd, the sun drops below the landscape and amber light ignites the stretch of sky spread between the home and visiting fans. It’s as though a great, unchecked wildfire is burning up the baked summer brush that connects the rural towns. It’s an armageddon glow that makes your eyes burn as though they were staring at the sun itself.

In the stadium’s microcosm, the teens are atoms of this time and place. Simple lives orbiting within a small town game played in an interzone between big cities.

The cheerleaders. The band kids. The players. The drill team. The band crew. The flag core. The boy. The girl.

The world hasn’t opened up to them yet.

The house sits at the intersection that dissects town in four. From her vantage point on its porch, she watches the trucks and automobiles roll up to the four-way stop from each direction throughout the day.

Her fingers trace the frail pages of an old magazine full of starlets. It’s high summer and every cube of ice in her tea has long vanished in the time she’s been draped across the wicker furniture. A ring of moisture’s formed at the base of the glass. It encircles the face of a beautiful girl like a halo, reminding her of the prayer card pressed between the pages of her diary.

A yard down the street is being mown and the air is blurred by a haze of debris, as though the whole world’s out of focus. Sun rays pierce that thick atmosphere of clippings and dry earth stirred up by mower blades. Upstairs, her mother sneezes, despite the pills her doctor prescribed for hay fever.

She waits on the porch every day through summer. From the time her father leaves for work, until the hour his truck’s engine heralds his impending return. The loud growl of the V8 can always be heard from a block away. A beast that lives beneath the gleaming skin of that new machine.

She waits for a boy who’ll take her away from the rural boredom that enshrouds her life. A boy she dreams about through sticky nights, when the box fan can’t cool her thoughts in that feverish heat.

She waits for the boy who’ll take her to the honky-tonks whispered about by seniors in the girls’ room at school. Places down the dirt roads outside town, where headlights cut the dust clouds of coming-and-going cars, and the music shakes the boards. Where beer spills over parted lips and bodies meet. Where the sweat soaks through the cotton and people are alive.

You wake early here when the rain rolls through. When waves of thunder rattle the house and the drumming of water against the metal roof becomes one incessant, overwhelming sound. A white static drowning out all thought.

So you rise in the darkness of those hours. You brew coffee by the greasy light above the stove. Then standing on the dilapidated back porch you watch the horse bolt about its pasture. You glimpse it for a second each time with each flash. A slick white ghost that lives within the lightning. It glistens with electric light. And as you watch that fleeting spirit you hate yourself for never finishing its stall.

You listen to the AC unit in the window working overtime. Even in the rain, the air still simmers with a heat hotter than any summer in England.

You sip the thick coffee in the dark worlds between the lightning, swirl the fine grounds that made it through the press against your teeth, and spit the black sediment into the downpour past the edge of the porch like a confession. Absolving your guilt.

The floor.

Songs of love set the old-timers’ hats bobbin’ at the borders of the floor. Around the swirling girls and broad arms and flashing neon signs for beer brands. They listen to the shuffle of boots on the glistening boards. A whisper dance of courtship. Old love. Old ways. That polka step speaks in an immigrant tongue. Long gone from home.

The ring.

Eight seconds is all it takes to be a king. In the middle of the muck and sand and stands. Eight seconds for a skinny kid from Venezuela that weighs all of a hundred pounds. Spun and bucked for fun, fame, and a fistful of bills.

He’s in the thick of it now. Where the suede boots stamp and drink and holler. Where the hooves kick up that slight-framed rider. His body rising to the thick rhythm of the flanks. Then down face first, digging in the dirt. Shoulders twisted. Arms buckled. And another breakage for the books. The beer-soaked crowd in its muddy thought wonder if he’ll ever ride again. Under the strip lights burning high above the ceiling fans.

The stage.

The whole town is out, from the infirm to the young. They’ve come to shake and roll to the rhythm of the band. Red skirts spin and denim shifts as the stage bleeds its sound. A sea of faces sways to the drum and lick and song. Those creased caps know. Those ticket holders on the tables and in the stalls know. This is how to live. This is how to let go of what’s beyond the walls of tonight.

The street.

It’s full night now. He sits beside the creek and smells the sweet resin cloud of weed. It billows from the college boys in sport polos, tennis shoes, and Stetsons. He sits beside the creek with his bundle. In his leathered skin. He sits behind bright black eyes that shine with the gleam of polished marbles set in the skin. The bachelorette parties, new buckles, neon, and sweaty bodies glisten in them. From sundown through the cacophony of night, he cranes his eyes beside the creek. Father time. Watching all that changes and all that does not.

Far West Texas is a landscape of memories and dreams. A rugged expanse of desert, mountain and mesa, tucked in the furthest corner of the state. It is a place both removed from civilisation and rich in culture. Its remoteness drew me there often, to cruise the open roads and embed myself in the landscape. It was during my last road trip across this land that the idea for Border Co. formed.

That final journey marked the end of a significant chapter in my life. I’d spent seven years living and traveling in the States. Having become a US citizen, I was preparing to return to my homeland of England to reconnect with family, friends and a life that I’d left behind.

On a shallow stretch of the Rio Grande that serves as the meeting point between Texas and Mexico, I reflected on the change experienced during my time in the US. Standing between the walls of Santa Elena Canyon, the significance of crossing over to new places and new opportunities resonated deeply. I thought of my body as a border. A point now connected to two places, carrying the experiences from both.

Looking back, there were three journeys in the US that established my passion for being on the road. The first and most significant was a month-long road trip with friends across ten of the western states in 2016. Days were measured by the miles covered, the people and sights discovered, and the long late nights in new towns.

There’s joy in setting out for a new point on the map, revelling in the forward momentum across new landscapes. It is there that I find myself happiest. Moving through layers of the past and present. Embracing the spaces in between. Spaces that inspire thought, reflection and creativity. A keen writer since childhood, these travels encouraged me to utilise the written word to capture the moments encountered along the way.

The experiences from that month-long journey, and two subsequent road trips across Texas and the borderlands of the Rio Grande, were the most significant in spurring my imagination. Driving pitch black desert highways. Cluttered conversations in crowded bars. The buzzing neon and blood-red glow of motel signs. The echo of my boots on deserted streets at dawn. These moments and many more fostered profound changes within me, cementing a passion to use my journeys as a means to explore a ragged form of writing that blended my experiences with fiction.

My personal background is varied. I moved out of the family home and into a girlfriend’s house aged sixteen to chase a life of unregulated drinking and adventure. I got kicked out of those digs and ended up back where I started. I studied music, then journalism, then found myself working for a magazine after graduating university. The pay was awful. A glorified internship. So, I went into retail for a better pay check. But also, for more interaction with people.

I’ve been in retail for over a decade now. It’s taken me from the UK to the US and back again. Along the way, I’ve moonlighted as an editor, copywriter and volunteer firefighter. I’ve even had some poetry published. In retail, I find my conversations with strangers to be the most fulfilling part of the job. It’s surprising to find how open a stranger is willing to be when you take an interest in who they are. Many of the strangers I’ve met on the store floor have become good friends. Our relationships cemented by a shared respect for each other’s stories and ventures.

While borders divide, they can also unite. They are points where different schools of thought meet, and where we connect with new landscapes on our adventures. They could be the edge of a new town, a mountain ridge, a coastal path, a river’s bank, or even a state line. In these places, our bodies are borders too. A point between our inner self and exterior experiences. Those experiences can expand our horizons, foster thought, and change the way we consider the world and ourselves.

Ever experimenting with words, I was looking for a means to merge my passions for writing, discovering stories, and creating meaningful partnerships.

Enter Border Co.

Border Co. is a travelogue of sorts. A chronicle of writings and snapshots captured on the road. The content might take the form of creative prose, scraps of fact, and shreds of fiction gleaned from observations. It might be a few sentences of captured dialogue from the mouth of a stranger or a long-form article focused on a specific experience, person or place.

Border Co. will also act as a bridging point for collaboration with makers. There’s a list of essential goods I’ll always throw into a backpack or duffle bag when heading on the road. The aim of future collaborations will be to explore these items, pulling out, examining and personalising the utilitarian goods deemed versatile enough to pack for a journey. Essentials built with longevity, craft production and a story to tell. The first of these will be revealed soon.

From glacial mountains in Montana, windswept prairies in Wyoming, Atlantic waves against the coast of Maine, and the cold clarity of nights in the high desert of West Texas, the natural grandeur of the US landscape inherently stirs much of the writing I produce. My time training and serving as a firefighter in Texas also granted me a deep respect for the men and women supporting communities, public lands and natural resources. Border Co. will strive to support and give back to these causes at every opportunity it can.

So, you may wonder: What exactly is Border Co.? Publication? Brand? Fundraiser? Perhaps it’s a little bit of all these things. Let’s just call it a project—to bring together stories and voices from different places to one crossing point.

I invite you to join the journey. I’m excited to see where the road will lead.

Welcome to Border Co.

- J. Bowyer