Do You Remember?

Lately, I’ve been in a nearly constant place of reckoning with my sense of home, internal and external, and how much both have changed. Not that change is inherently bad, it’s not. The person I am in the moment has grown in undeniable and breathtaking ways (honestly, I can’t believe I’m here).

This valley I was born to has also changed and grown in undeniable and breathtaking ways. Cow towns all over the west have transformed into cities that sprawl into the fertile land that once surrounded them as folks move towards a life more connected to nature and their values. That’s what I tell myself anyway, to keep the bitter at bay. This place, it’s not mine. I’m not righteous, everyone deserves to be here, to build a life that is aligned and fulfilling. This whole train of thought is a drop in the barrel compared to western expansion of the 1800s, the continual breaking of treaties and the genocide of Native people.

No matter how inconsequential and self-focused my reckoning with this 31-year change of the only place I’ve ever lived may be, it has deeply affected many people’s ability to afford to stay here. It has also brought up themes of what must be a universal grief of growing up: the “remember whens” we nostalgically exchange with our childhood friends when talking about the good ol’ days.

Remember when this neighborhood was a wheat field? We were just kids, not old enough to get into any real trouble; we would jump the irrigation ditch and trespass into the vastness of green. We would ride the irrigation sprinklers like seesaws, and your allergies would get so bad your eyes would swell shut. Remember when they sold off the field and put in the road? Then, that fancy pond and pavilion. Then they built the houses, most of them second homes. Remember when we could see the Bridgers from the park? Finding shapes on the mountainside in the cliffs and ravines as we perched in trees: a castle, a broken heart. Before, when that neighborhood was just a wheat field.

Remember when this was the end of town? There was that huge willow tree right here where another anonymous, modern box building with a flat roof and black sheet metal siding now stands. People from my childhood remember that tree; it was a presence, standing sentinel in front of that old farmhouse. This was a dirt road; people used to drive slow and let their dogs run beside their trucks. Cows grazed behind barbed wire fences; remember when they put in the stop sign? Now, it’s a four-lane intersection surrounded by big box stores; now, it’s the middle of town.

Remember when this was all wetland? Seriously, some of the best habitat in the state. My dad would take me out here to catch snakes and crawfish and count birds. Yellow-headed Blackbird, Belted kingfisher, Great Blue Heron. He would put on his waders, and I would crash through the cattails chasing dragonflies. Remember when they drained the water to build the condos? When that single cabin on the edge of the wetland got swallowed by the thousands of homes built on streets with names of the birds and plants that used to live here? Cattail, that's the name of the street.

Some things still remain.  I took a little girl I nanny and love to a trailhead on the edge of town. We sat at the picnic table under three huge shady aspen trees. Remember when we planted these trees? We must have been 10? Dad took us here in his work truck and dug the holes while we ate sandwiches in the sun and watched the turtles surface in the pond.

Remember the sound of grasshoppers and how they would fly up in droves as we ran down the trail? We helped him straighten out the small trees and push the dirt back in the holes.

I remember him telling me these trees will grow fast, and I didn’t believe him. Nothing happens fast when you’re a kid. But he was right; in the 20 years since, those trees have become giants, watching the town around them sprawl out. 

They give shade to kids eating sandwiches ,who will one day turn to an old friend and say, "remember when?”