DMB Digest: The Secret Shame of Grass
Lawn, get off my lawn!
At risk of writing my least popular post ever, this week (as a part of my “Get off my lawn” series) I’m shaking my fist at my lawn itself. I know! The vanity of it all!
As an aging, middle class (we all think we’re middle class these days) white male, I’m supposed to cling to lawn mowing as my favorite form of psychotherapy. Strap on the double-canned-beer-koozy helmet, pop in the earbuds, cue up an episode of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History (this time it’s part IV of Supernova in the East), start the ole’ John Deere riding mower, and mow all my troubles away. Mow my lawn. Mow my neighbors’ lawns. Mow the median. Start mowing my way down the nearest state highway. Just mow my way to Canada (where I’m searched and detained for attempting to smuggle American hard seltzers across the border).
But I’m turning my back on the rite. I simply can’t reinforce the stereotype. The lawn has been my arch nemesis since my boyhood years. As a kid, I grew up on a three-acre lot. Granted we didn’t actively mow all of it, but we mowed enough of it. Rocks, weeds, et al. Oh, and did I forget to mention my hay fever? Severe enough to result in regular blackouts when harvesting said grass and weeds?
After lodging a formal complaint several times in regard to the inefficiencies of mowing while passed out due to allergic reaction, a compromise was drawn up. My older brother would do all the mowing, but it was now my job to maintain both of our mowers. This sounded great until my older brother took it upon himself to routinely break both of the mowers in an effort to put all the work back on me. Oh how I rue my inability to mow without breathing. Soon my grease-monkey Saturdays erased even the memory of wheezing my way into town for a burger at the Bearcat Cafe. While mowing had a finite end, it seemed the mechanicking had no limit.
As I put childish ways behind me, I had hoped to put lawn mowing behind me as well. My first home was in town, on a tiny 0.15 acre lot. That was progress no doubt. But alas, it still came with a lawn. This lawn was haunted by the roots of our neighbor’s cottonwood tree. Yard upon yard of subterranean evil—a never-ending network of shallow, spindly roots mocking me with each new cottonwood shoot.
Was I simply destined to lock arms in this eternally foolish struggle to subdue nature into this ridiculously contemptuous thing we call lawn? Was there no escaping it? Would it never come to a peaceful resolution?
By the time the Wife and I purchased our fourth home, we had two little rug rats we longed to banish for lengthy stints outdoors. The Wife argued this meant more lawn. Why God? Why? I begged and pleaded to no avail. Could we not simply reduce the backyard to garden and mud? As a compromise, we planted a garden over a third, grew an orchard/vineyard over a third, and planted grass over the final third.
The size of my burden was shrinking, but it still remained. And it still remains to this day. A section of the earth over which I claim responsibility has been desecrated by a unnatural monoculture, upon which all harmony is suffocated in preference for an artificially selected grass meant to grow but never seed, consume water and nutrients while never yielding fruit. Just to take and take and take.
And why, for the love of all things holy? Why!?
So that there would be no end to my mowing. That’s the only answer upon which I can arrive. It is a torture device of our own making. Well, I rebuke it. I cast it off. I accept you not, oh self-inflicted unnatural specter! May my gardens forever contain only species intended to yield their fruit in season! And create not ceaseless and artificial labor for me!
Away from me oh you fruitless lawn—burdenous, suburban beast! I take you not unto my bosom to suckle of my waning energies! I need you not to rest under the shade boughs of my fruit bearing trees and to enjoy the fermentations of my vines—and to ponder my legacy well into the sunset of my labors. Oh treacherous lawn, I need you not.
If You Wish to Start Reading The Green Ones…
[Click here to start at the beginning.]
Thanks so much for taking the time to read these scenes of Boundaries, Season 2 of The Green Ones. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from The Green Ones until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 100 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy The Green Ones. Happy reading!