The Steps to Barton Springs
In 1962, in what seems like yesterday, I often walked from my apartment above Barton Springs in Austin, down the limestone-rocky, cedar thicket, to the seventy-degree spring-fed pools below. Then, I easily navigated the uneven rocks that passed for steps down to the water. Today, in 2024, I don’t even consider finding the path down the woods but drive and make my way from the parking lot to the steps, familiar still in spite of the decades since my last visit. I don’t plan to swim—I have to get back to Houston—but I want to see the water. Giving in to nostalgia is irresistible. I stop at the steps—how uneven!—and realize there is no hand-rail. Such details were of no account in 1962 and so, of course, not in my memory. I look down and take a deep breath.
The sixty-two years’ time-lapse between visits shrinks to minutes in my mind. I can see myself both as I was in 1962 and in 2024, more with a sense of puzzlement than anything else. What is aging but slow cellular changes only recognizable after they have happened? At this moment a two-way mirror in my mind shows the young self and the old self back to each other. I know, of course, that the steps will be dangerous, but memory holds them as no cause for concern. I feel outside myself, observing as others might see me, an old woman out of place and foolish. But I don’t care how I am observed, feeling driven recklessly to see the blue-green pools one more time.
I notice that on each side of the steps are slightly raised borders. I could bend over and touch them for balance. And why is balance such a problem anyway? Lord knows, I have worked hard enough on it. So I make my way slowly, always holding a finger onto the side rocks. With such uneven limestones I have to concentrate, one by one. And then I come to the end of the raised sides. There are three more steps, more uneven and rounded, with nothing to balance on. I stop, let go, and try to steady myself. Only three steps. If I had fallen, I probably would not be sitting at the computer now. But I make it to the ground and take in the view: same blue-green water. Same bikini-clad, tanned bodies, all young. Same trees line the banks, but no one seeks their shade. These kids don’t think about skin cancer yet. In my mind, I am in the water with them, shivering delightedly, fully in the moment.
A white-haired man with a teen-age girl beside him stands not far away. They don’t have swim suits on, so, like me, look odd. They move toward me, and the man asks if I know where one gets tickets to a pool on the other side of a fence. I tell him what my memory of sixty-two years ago contains, and we laugh. I ask him where he is from, he says Denmark, and then I recognize his faint accent over excellent English. He and his daughter are in Austin visiting his son, who works, of course, for a tech company. We chat about the hot afternoon, the cold pools, his time living in the US. The daughter says nothing, but looks at me as if she can’t figure out what in the world I am doing there. I explain that I lived as a student above the Springs and want to see them one more time. She looks as if she takes pity on me. I think sardonically, if not compassionately, that she will experience old age, too. We three wish each other a pleasant visit, and I make my way back to those treacherous steps.
This time I see a vendor standing next to the first three, most dangerous ones. He is to my left about ten feet away with his back to me. I say, “Sir, can you give me a hand?” I add, trying for a bit of self-deprecating humor, “I don’t want to fall on your things. He is startled and swings around, offering a hand. He gets the joke, but his wife, I assume, who is selling food on the other side of the steps, is having none of it. I see myself in her face, a privileged white woman, asking for favors where she has no business being. She is accurate, but I can’t care. I take his hand, walk up three steps, and stand to take in the view one more time.
