I come from a tiny village in the north of Spain, a place surrounded by nature. When I was a child, our school instilled in us the value of water conservation, since Spain has always been a dry country.
This was also happening at a time when there was a particular television campaign, the memory of which is vivid in my mind. It featured a song and a child's voice asking her father about where the river and forest had gone. The song's haunting lyrics painted a vivid picture of a future where nature might disappear if we didn't protect our water resources. That sense of loss of nature if we didn’t care for water was etched in my mind forever. This feeling was new for me then, but one that has endured until today.
As a teenager, I loved going to a beautiful water reservoir near the mountains during the summer. It was a peaceful getaway from the crowded beaches, where my friends and I would swim, kayak, and hang out on the shoreline. Years later we continued to go there to get away from the city and our busy lives. Even as adults, me and my friends still visited this place of peace that was also a symbol of summer days.
Years flew by and I moved from my hometown to Amsterdam. On one particularly hot afternoon, when I had gone back for a brief summer visit, I suggested to my childhood friend, Anna, that we went to our beloved reservoir, just the two of us. The day was perfect for a swim, it was over thirty-five degrees and, since it was August, we knew that the reservoir would be a more secluded option than the crowded beaches. When I asked her, she hesitated briefly, and told me that she had heard on television that the water level had dramatically dropped. We decided to go anyway and see the situation for ourselves, as it couldn’t be that bad. I expected it to look different, but was not ready for what I saw. The water was much, much lower. The parts where we used to swim in rich, clean water were empty, and the plants that used to be underwater were all dried up. It was shocking. The afternoon was turning grey, which added to the hostility of the scenery. I remember standing there in silence, next to my friend, both looking at the overwhelming white colour where there once had been a lot of green. We walked in silence for a bit, trying to find a nice spot that resembled the place that we used to know, but eventually gave up and drove home in silence. It felt like the scary distant future we'd heard about as children in that haunting song, was no longer an upsetting possibility, but that it had become our reality.
Since then, every year, as summer approaches, we talk about the water reservoir and how nice it would be to swim there one more time. There’s always an air of sadness when we bring it up, but before changing the subject we still say that we still might be able to do it one day. The longing for that place is a powerful reminder that climate change is not some distant, abstract notion, but a stark and pressing reality that affects us all; it's happening now and right next to our home.
