I have a lawn now.
Correction—my new duplex has a lawn that I’m responsible for mowing
every other week now. Still, I haven’t
mowed my lawn since I was 18. I’ve mowed
other peoples’ lawns. I’ve mowed large
tracts of land in national forests on riding mowers. I’ve chainsawed, wood-chipped, bobcatted, and
cherry-picked, but it’ been ten years since I’ve mowed my own lawn.
Last year, my first year in grad school, I barely noticed
that I had a lawn. As I recall it was
blocky shock of grass split down the middle by a concrete sidewalk with a small
garden of dead and dying things to the side.
My landlord took care of it and when I came home I mostly ignored it,
preferring to tunnel through the nesting grounds that three grad students in
different fields called a house until I made it to my room where I’d curl up
for the night. If it wasn’t a seminar
paper or a book or a food, I probably ignored it.
But this year I have a new place. I’m living with only one other grad student,
we have (some) actual furniture, this lawn, and are well on our way to possibly
being mistaken as real people. It’s easy
to forget about the place where the rest of the world lives when you’re in grad
school. It’s easier—sometimes
necessary—to squeeze the world into just one narrow swath of material in order
to accomplish your goals. Maybe mowing my
lawn doesn’t constitute tearing down these walls and hurling myself into this
other world, but it does require me to physically enter it for about 45-75
minutes every two weeks, walking it in tight, incrementally moving left vertical
lines.
 |
| My old place at I-don't-give-a-crap Lane |
 |
| Me now. |
And there’s a certain joy to mowing a lawn. Similar to the mindlessness of apartment
cleaning that tricks the brain into believing that it’s being productive when
it has chapters to read and papers to write, mowing gives me a different kind
of satisfaction—a bump up on the old production/ procrastination scale. The other day I found myself hypnotized by
the lanes of fresh cut grass I was etching into the lawn. Where there was once tangled chaos,
evenly-cut order sprang forth with a wave of my wand. I was enamored. It was the results-oriented satisfaction of
cleaning my apartment, but with an added feeling of a new normalcy as in this
was something that millions of real people do.
I vaguely remembered this feeling from my before grad school days. I kind of missed it now. Maybe it was just the fumes from the cracked
gas tank converging with the grass clippings, but I found mowing my lawn refreshing and wonderful.
My neighbor across the street, also mowing his lawn, noticed
me mowing mine and, I guess as mowing people are inclined to do, decided to walk over
to introduce himself. I had noticed him and his
family while moving in. It was the
standard American family with white picket fence, 2 SUVs and 2.5 kids, one a
teenager, one in elementary school, and remaining half of one either being the
dog or counted as part of their Equinox maybe since it was so big.
Michael was his name.
Michael was in his late forties with the kind of ankle-high white socks
worn with plain white sneakers and cellphone clipped to his belt dad-humor that
I enjoy from everyone aside from my dad.
“What do you have your mower set to? Machete?
I’m just joking with you, but seriously it’s looks like you’re working hard out
here, hardly working at all. I’m just
joking around.”
 |
| My new neighbors |
Ah, yes, just mowing my lawn and chatting up the neighbor
about home care. Yes, yes. Then Michael asked me what I did.
“I’m in grad school.”
“Oh, grad school”
“For English.”
“Oh, English.”
“Actually, it’s for creative writing.”
“Oh, fiction and poetry?”
“Actually, it’s creative nonfiction.”
“Oh… So like journalism, or text books maybe?”
There’s really no non-pretensious way to explain what
creative nonfiction is to someone who’s never heard of it. I said memoir and biography because that is
true, but I still saw his face well up in confusion. I thought about the story my Director of
Graduate Studies had told last year of his neighbor who thought all of his tax
dollars were going to this state college professor’s salary so he could read
books on his porch all day long. I added
that had also done some landscaping over the summer.
“Well, then your rows ought to be a lot straighter! I'm just joking.”
Saved it—bam!
Michael offered to hedge my lawn since I didn’t have a
trimmer and I agreed, feeling good to be mowing along side of his trimming. When my mower ran out of gas I said I’d get some more the next day to finish the lawn, but the next day our Internet was
installed and so I watched videos all day instead. The lawn is still only half-mowed, split down
the middle like a half-shaven Two Face. I
guess mowing just isn’t as wonderful as 14th season of Law and Order: SVU. At least I’m not reading out on the porch.
 |
| Every damn episode is the same, but God help me, those two notes between every scene... |
