May All Your Fences Have Gates

“Meet me at the fence,” was the most common telephone phrase shared between our neighbor, Helen, and the baking members of our family. During the 1960’s, last minute shopping wasn’t always an option as our family had one car and dad had taken it to work. We met our neighbor at the fence for a cube of butter or an egg and the conversations that I took for granted as a child, but remember fondly as an adult.

When one sister inquired of the other, “Where’s mom?” the other would answer “check the fence.” More often than not, mom was standing at the low fence talking and laughing with Helen. My grandfather, a mason by trade, built our fence, creating this knee-high meeting place where pathways from each house greeted each other naturally. He learned his skills in Switzerland where fences were built to last centuries. The rest of the fence was a six foot high wall of cinderblock that surrounded our house like a fortress. And perhaps it was to my parents, the protectors of their three little girls.

I hadn’t thought about my childhood fence until last spring when I discovered a neighbor building his own fence. I was moved by the beauty of his design and was reminded of Robert Frost’s poem, Mending Fences. The poem describes the author and his New England neighbor meeting in the spring to mend the stone fence between their properties. On the surface, it is a joyful retelling of a necessary chore, but the poem has become a metaphor for a myriad of human relationships and experiences. President John F. Kennedy is said to have quoted the first line from Mending Fences when he visited the Berlin wall in 1963, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

A fence is a part of our language as well as our landscape. To mend a fence means to resolve a conflict. To put up a fence describes an emotional barrier. To hurdle a fence defines a success. August Wilson wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning play about racism that was entitled Fences. As an African American man born in 1945, Wilson encountered the fences of prejudice first hand. Disgusted by the racist treatment he endured in school, he dropped out but was determined to educate himself in the local library. Wilson knew it was possible to overcome fences that others may erect, and to dissolve the fences that we may create. When asked to sign a copy of his play, he wished his young fan well by writing, May all your fences have gates.

Years ago, I followed a pathway along the cliffs of the Scottish coast. It was an enchanting world of vibrant green grass, grazing sheep and baby lambs. Along the way, I climbed on the ruins of an ancient castle and ate my sack lunch on its stone steps overlooking the North Sea. The sky was overcast and every breeze carried the scent of the sea. Every half-mile or so, my hiking companions and I would come to a fence. Fences are an integral part of the Scottish landscape given that grazing and farming at one time covered three quarters of the land and boundaries were an important part of building good relationships. But in spite of the fences, the hike was possible because there was either a gate or a rough wooden step to hop over.

In the past few months, I’ve thought a lot about fences. I cannot drive my car or ride my bike without noticing fences. Fences can be works of art or expressions of creativity, but mostly they serve as boundaries, to keep children safe or to keep the dog confined. Fences have shown me the kindness of strangers who allowed me to enter their yard, take a photograph and hear the story of their fence. Given the prevalence and power of fences, whether they are mental or physical, whether they hold back, hold in, divide, unite, or inspire, I think of Wilson’s phrase and try to implement it often. To you, the reader, I pass along the wish: may all your fences have gates.