Boundaries
Editor’s Note: We want to thank our writers for contributing unique, moving, and personal stories related to the new reality of a world besieged by the virulent coronavirus. We will be sharing those stories with you, along with our usual articles. We hope they bring you comfort, camaraderie, and company during difficult times.
by B.J. Stolbov
I was born and raised in the small town of Tamaqua in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. I would often ride my bicycle to see my friend in the village of Coaldale, five miles away, in Carbon County. In the Anthracite coal fields, both places, with their coal heaps, birch trees, deer and raccoons, robins and crows, looked almost the same.
I don’t recall a sign saying “Leaving Schuylkill County” or a sign saying “Entering Carbon County.” Or signs saying the opposite. There was probably a “Leaving” and “Entering” sign for Tamaqua; but I doubt that there was a sign for Coaldale, it was too small, or, if there was a sign, as the joke goes, it said “Entering” and “Leaving” on the same sign. I do remember that I had many good times with my friend.
Years later, I was hiking in Big Bend National Park in southwestern Texas where the Rio Grande River makes a big bend and marks the boundary between Texas and Mexico. Rio Grande means Big River. At Big Bend, it is a slow-moving, meandering stream. There, for no better reason than I could, I crossed the Rio Grande. Taking off my hiking boots and socks, and slinging them over my shoulder, I walked barefoot into the river. The river did not even reach my knees. From the south in Mexico, the river is called El Norte, The North. Two different names for the same river that didn’t seem like much of a boundary.
On the shore of El Norte, I remember seeing a little Mexican girl gathering stones, looking them over, then putting some of them in her pocket. On the shore of the Rio Grande, I remember seeing a little Texan boy gathering stones, looking them over, then putting some of them in his pocket. On both sides of the same river, almost the same stones.
A few days later, I hiked across the boundary between Texas and New Mexico. In the same Chihuahuan Desert, both Western Texas and Eastern New Mexico, with creosote bushes, barrel cactuses, yucca plants, mule deer and prairie dogs, rabbits and lizards, looked almost the same.
Walking across the United States of America, I crossed many boundaries, some without realizing it, many more intentionally, most without knowing what they were or caring why. I don’t understand boundaries, states, and countries. I don’t understand what the United States of America is. It was rarely United — just recollect the Civil War and the last few elections. The States are divided from each other by often arbitrary geometric lines on the land. And the name America not only pertains to the United States, but to all of the Western Hemisphere. We are all Americans. I don’t understand the United States of America, but I do understand and love the land.
I know that birds, animals, and plants do not put lines on the land. They do not know boundaries. Although they will defend their piece of the land, they know that they do not own it, that all the land is theirs and that none of the land is theirs. Only human beings seem to think they can permanently own the land.
There are, of course, natural boundaries, such as the Mississippi River, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Ocean . . . sort of. All these natural boundaries have been crossed in every direction. To some people, they are permanent boundaries, not to crossed, lines showing them where to stop. To others, they are temporary limits, challenges to be overcome, obstacles to go beyond.
A few years ago, I was traveling by car through the Cordillera Mountains of Northern Luzon from Ifugao Province to the City of Baguio in Benguet Province. There, I met an older Ifugao man. He was short, stout, and strong-legged. The Ifugaos are indigenous people who live in the Cordillera Mountains. Because there are no roads that go through the mountains, the trip around the mountains is a long, arduous journey. When I told the man where I was going, he shook his head and said to me, “It is only two mountains, two days walk, easy.”
Now, when I walk and when I try to travel, there are boundaries everywhere: between countries, between states, between counties, between neighborhoods, between friends.
And yet, despite all this, viruses don’t know boundaries.
B.J. Stolbov lives beyond boundaries and is where he wants to be.
