There’s something haunting about walking through a place you know you will never get to visit again. I can relate it to every rental I’ve ever lived in, how after those final boxes are sealed, and you’ve swept and mopped and cleaned the bathrooms one last time so that you’ll get the full deposit back, you walk through each room and remember all of the memories you built there. Or at least that’s what I do.
And that’s how our final trip to Fairfield Lake State Park was last Saturday. My husband mentioned the idea to make the trek up I-45 for a farewell tour before the state park closed, seemingly for good, this last Monday.
With no ambition to hike the trails quickly or with any destination in mind, we slowly walked through the woods to savor anything we could find. The weather wasn’t the best, overcast and in the mid-40s, but bundled up in a few layers and with the task to soak it all in, we made the most we could out of those final hours.
Every plant I saw, every turn I took, I would tell myself I could come back another time to see a particular plant blooming. And then I would have to remind myself, this is it. This is the last time I can walk up this gentle incline and notice this patch of trout lilies. I won’t get to plan a trip next spring a week or two later than now so I can see them bloom. I will never see them bloom. Will I be the last person to care that the trout lilies even existed in that spot?
I did this for so many plants and scenes. As we drove up and down the park road to get to different trailheads or picnic areas I would try to surmise which trees would be cut down to fit in a mansion. Was the water oak that I saw the buck under last November going to make it? What about the buck (if he survived hunting season)? Would the white pelicans still land on the lake when mansions lined the shoreline and the water quality declined from all of the fertilizer runoff the homes would require for their pristine lawns?
These thoughts plagued me and I kept pushing them out of my mind as long as I could until I eventually sobbed for several minutes as we made our way out of the park. The memories from childhood camping trips and whatever photos my parents might have would be all I had, there was no more retracing my steps through the hours of bike exploration my brother and I did there growing up.
I’ve been grieving a lot of ecological changes over the last year, especially as the Houston suburbs expand further north (and west and east). But the loss is everywhere. Fairfield Lake State Park is just next in line, alongside any number of natural areas threatened by development. We can’t even get people on board to stop growing certain invasive species and plant some native plants in their yards, how are we ever going to convince anyone we don’t need another subdivision or strip mall or highway expansion?
And so all I can do is close the blinds, lock the door, and hope I can drive by again someday and see how the old place has changed.
You notice. And noticing, you live. - John Graves “From a Limestone Ledge: Some Essays and Other Ruminations about Country Life in Texas”, p.163, University of Texas Press
I feel like a stranger in Texas, where I was born and have lived most of my life. I don't understand its ways. How can the highest, best use of land be for McMansions, vast green lawns as cemeteries where the real land is buried?