"There are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid." -- Katherine Paterson
I often wonder when my parents realized that I was a bit of an odd duck. Looking back, it may have been my vehement opposal of the lawn mower.
In the beginning, I hated the lawn mower because the orange beast on four wheels would careen around the yard with my mom perched on the seat and mow off the dandelions. I used to cry when my mom mowed the lawn in the summer because I didn't want the dandelions to disappear or be cut off (or "killed" as I put it). I would look across the lawn and see the whole thing covered in yellow (my favorite color) and I believed that dandelions were somehow part of the sunshine. I would go around and try to "save" bunches of them by picking them before the lawn mowing began and then giving them as bouquets to my mom and grandmas.
Later, I hated the lawn mower because I was deathly afraid of it. I remember thinking that I would get sucked under it as it drove past me, roaring and spitting out shredded dandylions, grass, and Kleenix. I was afraid I would be torn to bits and pieces.
I don't know if my mom did it to calm me or just because she was cool and wanted to keep me entertained while she mowed, but she made me a tent out of our picnic table one day. She spread a pink flowered flannel blanked over the top and held it down with heavy wooden blocks. This draped down to the bottom on one side. Then on the other side, she hung a blue flannel blanket in the same way. Finally, she cut me a bunch of flowers. I don't know if she was pruning them or if she was picking some and picked some for me to play with or what. I remember thinking that she had cut them all for me. They had almost no stems, so maybe she accidently cut them too short. I sat under there on the already-mowed part of the lawn with pink sunlight filtering through the blanket and flower tops strewn around me. I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to have a carpet of flowers, and so I strewed the flower faces all across the grass so that I almost had the whole "tent" carpeted with flowers. At first, I was worried that the lawn mower would go out of control and shred them, too. But after awhile, I forgot all about the lawn mower. It still roared around the lawn until my mom finished and came to get me, but I felt like I could protect the flowers, so I could probably protect myself. I don't remember being afraid of it after that.
After being sad and afraid, I grew furious at lawn mowing practices. My cousins and I made an entire "play house" out of sticks set up in a gigantic outline on the ground and pretended that we lived there for an entire fall. We refused to let my mother mow there any more that year. She yelled at us finally and made us pick it all up and we were all quite livid about it. She that we had decided to leave sticks all over the yard and we because we were about to become make-believe homeless.
Now I just don't really see the point of mowing the lawn. Luckily, I pay rent so that the lawn is someone else's problem.
But then again, I also used to believe I could fit through key holes (as in I thought that everytime I looked through the keyhole, I physically went through the key hole), so maybe "weird little kid" doesn't quite cover it.
Posted by LoWriter at June 30, 2004 11:00 AMMowing the lawn at least makes some minimal sense in that it cuts down on habitat for bugs, although trying to have a large expanse of all one kind of plant that isn't a crop is really silly. And watering a lawn is just ridiculous.
When I was a child, my father made me mow the lawn. I hated mowing the lawn. I hated being outside, because it was hot out there and there were also bugs. I was kind of a dorky kid. Still am.
Anyway, now I own a house, and I love to mow the lawn. Its so relaxing. I'm outside, I can do that head-nod thing to the neighbors so I feel like I'm part of the community, and despite all those who like the natural look, you tend to take pride in a well groomed lawn. Not that I have a well groomed lawn (mine's just mediocre), but if I did, I know I'd be proud. Unless I had one that was *too* well groomed. Like that guy across the street. He's crazy. He mows it twice in that fancy criss-cross style. That's just plain fanatical.
Posted by: schdav at July 1, 2004 09:17 PMI eventually had to mow the lawn too, and I hated it, too. Probably because we had a massive lawn. Every year, Dad would annex more of the field into it.
I agree about the watering thing. And I guess mowing is neccessary to keep the bugs and poison ivy away. But you're right about trying to grow an expanse of one plant that isn't a crop: We planted grass once. When we got our new house. One time in the entire 24 years of my life. I think we sort of run on the theory that if it can't take care of itself, then it deserves to be taken over by clover.
Posted by: Lo at July 2, 2004 07:43 AM