It's Time to Mow Again

I do my best thinking when I’m mowing. While lounging on my zero-turn rider, feet kicked out and crossed in front of me, the white-noise whir of the engine drowning out all other distraction, I run loops through my mind while I run loops around my acre. The whole meditative process might resemble a prayer, an exercise in gratitude or it’s good for isolated focus on a problem, a chance to test out my side of an argument by experimenting with sentences and imagining what I might say given the opportunity. Sometimes I drift towards a story I’m working on or a poem, tossing fresh images and ideas into the mix so that I can game out a line or how a character might react to a particular curveball.

I’ve never minded mowing the yard. The chore so many people hate comes easy to me, unlike dusting and vacuuming. I prefer the outdoors. When the kids were young, it afforded me an hour of ‘quiet’ time. Plus, I find satisfaction in the appearance of a well-cared-for lawn. I’ll add that I’m winnowing down what gets mowed by sowing large swaths of wildflowers.

I mowed once when I was nine months pregnant. In my defense, I had ulterior motives. In my husband’s defense, he didn’t want me to do it. We compromised and I mowed the back yard while he stood watch, lest I keel over. My aim was to jump-start labor. This was child number four, and I was fed up with being pregnant, so that day, a hot June Saturday, I’d made up my mind I wasn’t going to sit down until labor had started.

Those were the push-mower days when I lived in town and had a much smaller yard. Out back, while walking increasingly smaller squares, I had a chit chat with God. “Here’s the deal,” I said. “I know it’s a few days early but I’m seriously fed up with being pregnant so I’m appealing to you to make today this kid’s birthday.” That’s not exactly what I said, but you get the gist. Likely, I sounded more desperate than that, but I was deadly serious. This was my fourth child in five years (my fault, I know), but I knew it was my last and I was so deeply bone-tired of being pregnant that I wanted it to be over even though I knew adding another child to our already chaotic home wasn’t going to remedy my sleep deprivation problems.

After I finished mowing, I went back inside the house. I might have sat down; I don’t recall. What I do remember is that later that afternoon a thunderstorm blew through town, the barometric pressure took a nose dive, and I began to experience a serious backache. About 3 o’clock, we decided to go to the hospital as a precaution, to get checked out and see if the backache meant anything. The baby was born three hours later.

That was thirty-two years ago and remains in my memory, crisp as fresh-cut grass. That day might have cemented the notion for me that mowing affords me a time and head space I can’t replicate any other way. The other day, that memory materialized again while I bumped along the yard under a blue sky of popcorn clouds and the August green of grain fields stretched out around me like a broad, emerald robe.

Life these days doesn’t look anything like it did back then. I suppose it’s that way for most of us. Funny that back then I thought, while mowing, about what I wanted from life. These days I spend more time being grateful for what I have, a hard-won patch of peace and contentment, and I’m not only talking about property.

BUT, check back with me come winter when I’m locked in a cage of ice and snow. Shoveling doesn’t inspire the same nostalgia.