BOUNDARIES

The fence appeared overnight, or so it seemed to those of us who lived on Maple Street. One day we were walking freely between the Hendersons' yard and the Patels', cutting through to reach the corner store, and the next day there was a six-foot wooden barrier dividing what had always been continuous space.

Mrs. Henderson explained that it was about property values, about clearly defining what belonged to whom. The Patels said nothing, but I noticed how their children stopped playing in the backyard, how the sound of their laughter no longer drifted over what was now a wall.

This is how boundaries work: they appear suddenly, often without warning, transforming familiar landscapes into foreign territories. They create insiders and outsiders, us and them, here and there. They promise security but often deliver isolation.

I think about boundaries often now, living as I do in a world increasingly obsessed with drawing lines. National borders, gated communities, social media echo chambers—we are constantly creating new ways to separate ourselves from one another, new methods of determining who belongs and who doesn't.

But boundaries are not always walls. Sometimes they are rivers, sometimes they are languages, sometimes they are the color of our skin or the sound of our names. Sometimes they exist only in our minds, invisible lines that we nonetheless feel as surely as if they were made of concrete and barbed wire.

Growing up as a Black girl in a predominantly white suburb, I learned early about the boundaries that others drew around me. There were the obvious ones—the country club that my family couldn't join, the neighborhoods where we weren't welcome—and the subtle ones: the way conversations stopped when I entered a room, the way my achievements were always qualified with surprise.

I learned to navigate these boundaries, to find the gaps and openings, to make myself small enough to slip through. I learned the language of code-switching, the art of making others comfortable with my presence. I learned that boundaries are not fixed things but fluid, negotiable, subject to change based on context and power.

But I also learned that boundaries can be protective, that sometimes we need them to preserve our sense of self. The boundary between work and home, between public and private, between what we share and what we keep sacred. These boundaries are not walls but membranes, permeable but present, allowing for exchange while maintaining distinction.

In therapy, I learned about personal boundaries—the right to say no, the importance of protecting my energy, the difference between being open and being available. These boundaries were not about keeping others out but about keeping myself intact.

The paradox of boundaries is that they simultaneously connect and separate. A river divides two countries but also provides a shared resource. A language creates barriers between communities but also bonds within them. Even the fence on Maple Street, for all its divisiveness, became a meeting place where neighbors would lean over to chat, their elbows resting on the wood that was meant to keep them apart.

Perhaps the question is not whether boundaries should exist—they always will, in one form or another—but who gets to draw them, and why. Who benefits from their presence? Who is harmed by their absence? And how do we create boundaries that protect without imprisoning, that define without diminishing?

The fence on Maple Street is still there, weathered now and covered with ivy. The Henderson children have grown up and moved away. The Patels' youngest daughter just graduated from college. And sometimes, on summer evenings, I see neighbors talking across that fence, their voices carrying over the boundary that once seemed so absolute, proving that even the most solid barriers are no match for the human need to connect.