Children are our future
HE DEVASTATING NEWS MANY of us here in Taos were greeted with last Sunday morning was a lesson in perspective; as bad as things are perceived to be in the greater world, nothing compares to a commnity in collective grief over their children killed and wou
TBy noon, the grapevine was way ahead of the media outlets, word spreading by phone and email, in church and in the line at Smith’s; all of Taos sharing the burden of grief, but none so much as the parents shaken by loss and worry. In a town as small as this one, everyone is somehow connected, especially at this late hour, when your children go to school with my grandchildren, and so forth.
When I first came to Taos in the 80s, that wasn’t necessarily the case; except for a few exceptions, there wasn’t much crossover in the three distinct communities. I was lucky — I forged lifelong friendships with extraordinary people in all three; the Pueblo, the local Hispanic descendants of Colonial Spain and the Anglo artist set, learning much from all three, and coming to love all of their disparate cultures equally. This was not necessarily true for many other newcomers, who seemed to remain, for the most part, segregated from one another.
Things have changed since then, and now I have two granddaughters with deep roots and connections to this valley, both from their Hispanic relatives, and to their first cousins at Taos Pueblo. They each carry a dose of indigenous Meso-American genes from their father, along with a melange of bloodlines which render them quintessentially American. They are not alone.
Many other kids their age, growing up in this valley share similar stories and bloodlines, the once-closelyguarded communities have opened up, and much like with my own ethnically Jewish predecessors, have already begun the process of assimilation and intermarriage.
These kids are now going to school with your kids and my grandkids, and you get my drift; we are all connected. In this very small community, it is impossible to escape that reality, and our success at transcending conquest, colonization, generational trauma — along with the neurosis of modern civilization — depends on us realizing this essential fact.
Your food is my food, and this soil, this earth, continues to feed us because we all care about a sustainable lifestyle and economy. And if we don’t? Well, have no doubt — the mountain will take care of that, just as it has forever.
But if we do, then we know we are in this together; I share the grief we all feel right now. I also find myself facing feelings I’ve faced before, when my own kids were teenagers, and together with a close friend, suffered a terrible car accident that found me on a plane to Flagstaff, Ariz., where my youngest daughter lay on an operating table for almost eight hours after being ejected from a vehicle driven by her sister.
The three girls who survived that crash were not inebriated, nor were they driving at night — in their case, a tire blowout was the cause. My daughters and Maya Vargas survived that crash, and only my youngest sustained critical injuries, but the emotional trauma experienced by all of them — and all of us, their parents — cannot be underestimated.
That news came to me via the grapevine also, as presumably my exhusband was in too much shock to make the call, but in that moment, as I was driven to the airport by my daughters’ friends in a car loaned by their parents, I understood how deeply true the maxim, “it takes a village.”
When my kids were that age, before and after that accident, I tirelessly advocated for teenagers in Taos, writing letters to this paper, articles for another; I called on parents and businesses in town to insist on creating events and spaces where teenagers could safely gather without resorting to alcohol and drugs, and consequently driving under the influence.
It’s hard to believe that all these years later, as a grandmother of kids who are friends with — and go to school with — the victims of that terrible crash, that I still find myself urging our community to realize that far too many of our kids continue to fall through these cracks. This is not “their” problem, it’s our problem, and it’s high time we did something about it.
Twenty years on we do have programs encouraging learning through art, science and technology, that are no doubt helping kids to process the difficult emotional passage through childhood and puberty. SOMOS, TrueKids 1 and Twirl come to mind. (In this issue Twirl resumes a monthly column for Tempo; an invaluable resource for parents.) But it’s not enough. Our teens still need skateparks, a clubhouse and other spaces where they can safely hang out, day and night; spaces they help to create and run.
While we are focused on using grants and other Federal monies to build affordable housing, let’s not forget that our children — all of our children — are the hope and future of this community, and if we don’t invest in them, we have nothing at all to look forward to.