Love is in the air. Or is it something else?

It depends on where you are. And where you're coming from.

Sketch of a skateboarder by a young boy in Tijuana.

The four adolescent boys huddled around a second-hand, metal file cabinet at the back of the classroom, focusing on the explosion of stickers that covered every inch of the sides and drawers.

The four included an aspiring architect and an aspiring tattoo artist. They were especially captivated by the graffiti and random images on the stickers, including the haunting visage of cult leader Charles Manson.

But it was ultimately the work of Banksy, the British activist famous for his political, sometimes whimsical street art, that the boys zeroed in on. 

On my phone I searched for and found Banksy’s “Love is in the Air,” which depicts a protestor, the lower half of his face covered, poised to throw something at his oppressors.

If you’re familiar with Banksy, you know that the object in his hand is not a grenade or a Molotov cocktail, but a bouquet of flowers.

I did my best to explain the image and its message. The boys listened quietly, then lingered to examine the rest of the stickers, researching other images on their phones.

Banksy’s “Love is in the Air,” 2003. Creative Commons photo.

The boys were among 15 children, ages 8 to 17, asked to do arts & crafts projects and basically chill for several hours while their parents listened in another room to badass immigration lawyers explain their rights as asylum seekers.

Oh, I forgot to mention that this classroom was in Tijuana, and that the young people were from several Central America countries and Mexico.

The entire group was polite and well-behaved — impressive given the range of ages and the reality of being stuck indoors with a couple of American adult volunteers on a beautiful fall day.

But the reality they endured en route to Tijuana was surely far worse. I know a small part of the backstory of two brothers who were in the class that day, but am not at liberty to say. Trust me, it’s traumatic.

Where I live in a suburb in upstate New York, there’s a pair of brothers in my neighborhood about the same ages as the two in the classroom. It’s frightening to imagine the same thing happening to these boys as they walk half-asleep to school, thinking about girls and soccer, maybe even homework.

But that’s the reality in Tijuana and in other border cities, and in too many other places on earth, as we all know by now if we’ve been paying attention and give a damn about anyone but ourselves.

Maybe she could read my face, but a thoughtful friend asked me the other day how I’m handling “re-entry,” the difficult process I go through every time I return from a volunteer trip to the US-Mexico border.

The big picture, of course, is that I live comfortably and have no right to complain. I’ll be fine.

It’s other people around here I have a problem with, especially after I’ve spent a couple of weeks among men, women and children who have endured trauma and violence en route to seeking refuge in the U.S., only to be turned away or treated with disrespect and hatred if — not when — they are allowed in.

But this time the selfishness of others, and my disgust, my anger, didn’t wait until I got home. As I walked through the official port of entry from Tijuana into San Ysidro, Calif. on my next-to-last day in Mexico, the MAGA welcoming committee had sent an ambassador to spread its ugly gospel.

“We’re paying for your hotels!” the angry white man shouted at the line of asylum seekers waiting to be processed on the other side of the fortress of steel, concrete and concertina wire. “Aren’t there enough jobs in Mexico for you?”

This kind of overt hatred — and, of course, the lies and threats — have ramped up as the Nov. 5 election approaches. “The other” is a most convenient target, especially when you’ve never made an effort to get to know “them.” A spectacular deportation machine is the dream of the most vile among us, with a former Trump honcho promising “the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen. They ain't seen shit yet. Wait until 2025."

A wise neighbor of ours, appalled by the ignorance, lack of basic empathy and critical thinking among those who worship a certain convicted felon, often shakes her head and says, “We’re not a serious country.”

I agree with her, completely.

The relentless, amplified lies of the Fox entertainment network, the racist remarks of the low-information guys at work and selfish stock-market watchers in gated communities, the bald-faced hypocrisy of spineless elected officials, are all a sad commentary on where we are as human beings.

In my most cynical moments, I think we as a nation, as a species, deserve Trump. (Among border activists, Biden/Harris aren’t much different).

We certainly haven’t proved that we deserve a democracy, much less the beneficent planet we’ve been given. The convicted sociopath almost took us to rock bottom the last time, and Stephen Miller and his other puppeteers will make sure of it, given another chance.

So what are decent people to do, other than descend into hopelessness and paralysis?

I often look to Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, who as an attorney defended death-row inmates and later founded the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Ala. — the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. Bucket-list stuff for all of us.

Stevenson gave a lecture in Syracuse, N.Y. in 2017 and his words and his passion that night continue to inspire me: Change only happens “when good people are willing to do uncomfortable things.” … “Incredible things happen when you’re proximate to those who suffer.” … “Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. Hope is what you need to have to be proximate.”

That sounds like love to me.

So what’s in the air that you breathe? The air that your neighbor breathes, that your brother-in-law or co-worker breathes?

Can you send some of that love their way?

Tell them it comes from an artistic peace activist in England with a huge following. Or from a thoughtful teenaged boy in Tijuana who likes to draw skateboarders and wants to become a tattoo artist or an architect.