I mowed the other day, then mowed again three days later. According to the weather report, the pollen count, and the humidity ratio, I will be mowing again very soon. I might have to mow when it doesn’t need it, I might have to mow because the neighbor mowed, I might have to mow because I can’t mow tomorrow or the day after.
Life is suddenly, all about mowing.
My husband was the mower, never me, but when he died suddenly, the grass just kept growing. I know I can hire it done; that would be the easy thing to do, but my husband had just bought a new mower and it was just sitting there.
So was I.
The designers of this mower must have been NASA engineers. The manual says to thrust the throttle, lift up the lever, and push in a button, all in a specific order before you can take off. One time, I pushed up the lever beside a picture of a running rabbit. I spent the next thirty minutes flying around the yard barely hanging on. When I finally risked turning around to view my handiwork, I noticed that I was mowing but not mowing at all.
Apparently lowering the blade is really important.
I got the hang of it, finally, but I don’t love it like others I know who find mowing a form of therapy. Mowing, for me, is itchy, loud and seems to be never ending. There are gas cans to fill and weather to worry about and still, no matter what happens, the grass has to be mowed. It seems like now; my whole life revolves around growing grass. Why can’t I love mowing like others love mowing? The ones who talk about mowing, and compare notes about mowing and seem to mow with passion.
If I have to mow, I don’t want to hate it.
But I did, right up to the day I found my husband’s earbuds, the pair I gave him when he bought the mower. Randy complained one day that while he was mowing, he missed a segment of a show on a topic that he wanted to hear. So, I bought the earbuds so he could listen to whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, all he wanted. I would’ve bet money that Randy would not use those earbuds; I just knew they would set around fully charged with no chance of using that charge.
Boy was I wrong.
For the complete column, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard.
