When I’m feeling discouraged, I often retreat to memories of my childhood.
What I didn’t know when I was younger was that it was not the same for every kid. While there were some kids trapped in the city, we were left to wander the vast grasslands that we lovingly called the valley.
Borders didn’t mean much to a band of kids carrying pocketknives and BB guns. We went wherever it looked most interesting, where there’d be the least amount of adult intervention.
One fall afternoon after discovering a well-hidden cow pond, we hustled back to Nana Cruisitas’s house to gather all the wood we could find. Behind the work shed we built a raft to sail across the cow pond. We balanced the raft on top of two bicycles and carefully made our way to the pond.
In those days there was hardly a soul on those Lochiel roads. There was no one to question what we were doing, and no Dads around to stop us. Once we made it through the tall grass, we unloaded our vessel on the shore of that muddy pond. The cows kept their distance, choosing to stay away from the noise and confusion. All together we hoisted our raft up and floated it on the top of the water. The little kids climbed aboard, and then the big kids jumped on and shoved off.
We made it a quarter of the way before our vessel started taking on water. The little kids began to squirm. The ship began to sink, and before we knew it, we were all thigh-deep in mud and cow poop.
No one was laughing. The older kids did all we could to save the little kids — our little sisters and brothers. We were bound by the “take care of your brother/sister clause,” and the trouble was always worse when they came back hurt. Once everyone was on shore and the raft was at the bottom of the pond, we threw rocks at it until we were satisfied and headed back to the house to start again.
We spent hours, days and months playing in the grasslands of Lochiel. We rode bikes, dug forts into the hillsides and climbed the huge cottonwoods that ran along the riverbed. We never paid no mind to the border or even realized what it meant or why it was there.
Fast forward to now. I couldn’t go out to Lochiel. I didn’t want to see what was happening. I wanted to retain the image I had in my mind’s eye of cattle ponds and untouched dirt roads as far as the eye could see. I wanted to only remember the horizon that looked into Mexico and continued unspoiled until it reached the clouds.
I finally gathered the courage and made my way to the valley. I sobbed the first time I saw the big black gouge that interrupted the horizon. It looked as though it was blocking the clouds from making their journey across the grasslands. I drove further to see giant cottonwoods toppled over to make way for not one but two walls.
What about the birds and the ecosystem that relies on them to stand? What about the kids who will never climb them again?
I sat at the base of the lone standing cottonwood and wondered how the pronghorn will make sense of this? They have such little time to decide what side they are on before the wall closes in on them. I wondered if push came to shove, could a bear, jaguar or coyote climb both walls to be reunited with their family?
I am heartbroken. When you sit among the last remining trees that look into Mexico, it’s like visiting a hospice room. The patients are dying. Those brave enough are standing vigil while the rest of the country is wondering why we care so much about some trees.
If only it were that simple.