The sound of a distant mower disturbs my Saturday morning coffee.
The neighbor across the street? The neighbor behind us? Who is out there making sure their lawn looks better than my lawn? Why aren’t they being struck down by lightning?
My shoulders slump. I look out the window and see an unruly front yard. Dandelions chasing grass. Grass chasing dandelions. It is July, and green things are growing. Living things are living.
I don’t want to mow the lawn. But I have to mow the lawn. Again and again (and again).
***
A kid in the neighborhood mowed our lawn when we were traveling a few weeks ago. I gave them $40. It was a relief to come home to neatly trimmed grass. This is the first time I’ve paid somebody else to mow my lawn. I am not a person of means. I mow my own lawn.
Dad mowed our lawn until he didn’t. He started letting our grass run wild when we moved to an affluent suburb north of St. Paul. Eager to please my father, I learned to wield our self-propelling lawnmower. That lawnmower, like all lawnmowers, wore down. It no longer propelled it self, so I propelled it. Up the steep hill in the backyard, back-and-forth, covered in sweat, and the lawn was mowed.
Five blissful years in a one-bedroom apartment in Uptown came and went, and I found myself the owner of a house in Northeast Minneapolis. I bought a push mower to tame our tiny yard. And then I owned half an acre of land in Pennsylvania. Mowing became my burden. My yard in Iowa City is deceptive. Hills, nooks and crannies, and hornets nests. And yet I’m out there once a week in the summer all the same. Taming a wilderness that is unnameable.
***
I am procrastinating right now. Writing this blog instead of mowing the lawn. Trying to avoid sweating through two shirts.
Solomon has no interest in mowing the lawn. Samson is probably a year or two away from being able to mow the lawn. And so the task comes to me.
In some ways, it is soothing to follow the lawn mower. Back and forth. Forth and back. And it always feels like I’ve accomplished something when I’m finished. Mowing the lawn is kind of like writing for me, I suppose. It takes energy to start but, once I’m going, I find peace. And then I’m proud of what I’ve built. And then there’s more to do.
The first step is always the hardest. I’ll close my computer now, put on some tennis shoes, and set off once again.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 