Fences

My husband and I live in a house with a privacy fence that surrounds our backyard. Out here in the Texas suburbs, everybody has them. The eight-foot buffers looked so odd to me when we first moved here over 20 years ago, especially because I genuinely thought the song, “Don’t Fence Me In” was about Texas (it’s Montana, actually). Do you know it?

“…I can't look at hovels and I can't stand fences, don't fence me in…”

I’m used to the fences now.

The day after the 2024 general election, I took a work-from-home break to have lunch in our backyard. Happy squeals were pealing over the right side of our fence from the four little brothers who live next door. They were obviously on their lunch break, too. Mom home-schools them.

At first, I enjoyed the joyful boy sounds; but then my mood dimmed as I remembered how many times their mom and her mother used the word “safe” when we first met them. Boys, stay in the front yard where it’s safe. We don’t let them ride bikes more than a block away without us. We let them play in the backyard even though it’s not all that safe. The boys will be safer when we find a different house further out in the country.

Who do they think they’re afraid of? The crime rate in our region has been going down for nearly 25 years. It’s practically non-existent in our town.

Suddenly, a new kind of sound starting filling the air. It came from a yard behind ours. I’ve never met these neighbors because, well, fences, but it’s clear who they voted for by their loud conversation, not to mention the billboard-sized campaign sign in their front yard. I’m a football fan, so I know this kind of victory energy doesn’t come from your head or your heart. It comes from your gut. Their malicious bravado went straight to my gut where uncoincidentally, danger is also born.

The acoustics of their misogyny skyjacked the atmosphere, drowning out the sounds of the kids playing next door. “No, no!” my soul cried. “You stay away from those boys!” Are today’s bigots so emboldened that they will shape the future right here in my own backyard? The thought was too much to bear. I packed up my lunch and retreated indoors.

That was yesterday. Today, it’s lunchtime and I’m back outside. If I hide inside my bunkers, I realize, evil will continue to advance the echo chamber of its own making. Yes, my gut has fear. But my heart and brain are also engaged, and the three of us will figure out what to do.

In the meantime, I wonder who we would be today if we had never built fences around ourselves in the first place.