The Past Beneath Our Feet, The Future Ahead

Yesterday I went for a cache at the edge of a park I had visited several times before. The cache is part of a series that features each cache placed at a cemetery that, at a minimum, exists in the state’s paperwork. I walked along a running trail for a little bit and then popped off into the tree line. I was glad I chose this direction to approach it because if I had come from the street side, I would have encountered a barbed wire fence. It didn’t take long rummaging around to figure out where the cache was and sign the log. At the same time, knowing that I was in what was supposed to be a cemetery, I looked around. There were only trees. Nary a stone to be seen.

One of my complaints about Austin culturally is that I feel that there is a lot of NIMBYism here. Nobody seems to want anything to change. It is usually stated that it is to keep our cultural distinctiveness and weirdness, but it usually means that someone doesn’t want to threaten their land values or risk living around “those” people, whether those people are Black, young, Brown, poor, immigrant, or any other number of classifications. It feels like there are far too many people who fight so hard against change. Please don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, I’m that guy. It seems like the state of the Austinite is to remember the places and things that used to be so cool. I could rattle off a litany of bars, restaurants, and attractions that I am sad are no longer here. My point here (and I do have one) is that everything changes. Nothing is eternal. Not even cemeteries, the last bastions of equality, are eternal. I felt a little sad, knowing that somewhere under my feet was someone’s final resting place. But then again, once, possibly within my lifetime, this area would have been wild, barely touched by human hands (except maybe the occasional cedar chopper). And now, cars and joggers in the hundreds pass by daily. No one buried here probably could have conceived of that. There’s perhaps no one living who even remembers anyone who was buried here. And if someone does remember, they most likely would not live in the now long established subdivision across the street. So gather ye caches while ye may. That cache you’re saving for another time may not always be there. And one day, for whatever reason, you may not be able to go out and get it. And if that cache makes you think about the past or the future (or some kind of crap like that), that works out nicely, too.