It’s the dark of the moon, which means if I mow the lawn the grass won’t grow back fast enough to make the whole process a waste of time. We don’t have a “lawn,” but our house is surrounded by tufts of thick, wide-bladed grass that shoots up from the bed of softer, shorter blades to bear golden stalks and tangled seed-heads. Dad bought a new mower recently, which makes the mowing disgustingly easy.
“Don’t worry, it is still exercise,” Dad tells me; I am looking for something more punishing. This mower is self-propelled—inconceivable! I miss our old mower, which Dad found in a junk-heap and revived numerous times. Its red paint covered less than one-third of its body, the little rubber wheels were prone to falling off, and it started only after about five yanks of the starter-rope.
I know the beginning of summer when the mower coughs to life outside my window. I used to watch the creatures escaping its whirring blades: dancing grasshoppers and fat black crickets like the ones I fed to the toad I caught behind our house, little pickerel frogs that scoot away with bulging emerald eyes.
I have to clutch the shuddering handle and push, the muscles in my legs pulling taught. Half of the time I’m not strong enough and I can only manage by pulling the mower backwards behind me, its wheels rattling. The sound of cicadas reminds me of mowing. The sun is honey-warm on my back, scorching on my forehead. In the tall grass, the mower will choke, so I have to angle it upwards and only take half a strip of grass at a time. If the mower chokes on heavy grass, it may not start for a few days. I learned to judge how close the mower was to choking by the pitch of its humming. I like to cut in patterns, squares and swirls, alternating forwards and backwards, around trees and down the driveway. After I finish the slope outside our front door, my hands are bruised and blistered across the palms, my shoes green and skin itching with sticky green confetti. Deerflies prick my knees; I dash inside, too tired to haul the mower back to the shop.
Away with those acres of silky-smooth, moss-green lawn, arching and shining. I’d smirk at that display of foolishness; old men riding back and forth on their riding mowers, as though there is nothing better to do in life but trim the grass down to a quarter of an inch. As though one’s life and reputation depended on it. This is conspicuous consumption at its finest. A lawn isn’t useful, it isn’t doing anything, and requires hours of care, gallons of water, pounds of fertilizer, oh, and weed-killer. Ha! Those lawns say. We’re wasted land, not growing crops, or flowers—we’re just owned—look at how handsome and tended we are (the better to show off the caddy and the pool)! In those days, we didn’t mow because, as I would smugly say to my inquiring friends, “We have lawnmowers—the animals keep our grass short.” Tethered in the middle of the yard, each one would quickly crop that circle short.
The waist high grass was where I’d crawl, playing out my daring deeds and stalking my prey. My friend and I played hide and seek in the grass, our knees stained green, our hair full of seeds. Lying flat on my stomach, I breathed in the smell of growing, the juicy stalks warmed by the sun. I wriggled forward, making a path through the field. I am burrowing through and tunnel, green like the sea. Strawberries grow at the bottom in clusters, their juice staining my palms and lips.
But now our new mower makes the task of keeping the grass cut feasible. I can start it. I am amazed that I can cut the whole “lawn” in an hour. Everything seems different when the grass is cut, the light is a different shade of lime, the shadows of leaves on the ground are sharper, the smell is overpowering, begging me to gather up piles of grass and jump in them. I think of lawn ornaments, the smell of chlorine, summer games of soccer, barbecues, and things that are not part of my life.
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