Tales from the Lawn Part Deux

So I think that after this post I should have "had my say", one of my mother's favorite sayings, in regards to my lawn care. One of the strangely bizarre things that happens to me while I am doing yard work is I always manage to attract some of the weirdest people into my space. It is like my presence in my lawn becomes some sort of homing beacon, or powerful magnetic force that pulls people to me. Part of it at first I know had to do with the fact that for a long time I was using some unorthodox means of lawn care (i.e. using and old fashion push lawn mower or weed whacking my entire lawn). Most of the time people would comment that it has been a long time since they had seem one of those, referring to my pust mower. One time when I was still renting, a man had observed me using my push mower and simply "could not take it any more", and came over with his gas mower and mowed my lawn for me. At the time I was willing to let him because I was seconds away from what felt like death by heat stroke. However, as this became a common theme, I evetually got annoyed with the constant comments or offers to mow my lawn for me. My standard response became, "No thank you I like the exercise", as I gasped for air. The part that gets me is that I have seen other people in my own neighborhood with the exact same pust mower as me and I have often wondered if they experienced the same commentary that I did while mowing their lawn.

Since my partner and I bought our current house I have experienced something entirely new when it comes to mowing my lawn. I have acquired an audience. There is a young boy who lives down the street from me, whose name is Michael, and he is utterly fascinated with lawn care. When Michael hears my lawn mower he is like a moth to a flame, he comes quickly over to my house where he proceeds to literally follow me around up and down the yard as I mow the lawn. Now I believe that Michael is a really sweet boy who has been nothing but completely nice to me, but this kind of drives my crazy. And to top it off his tutor/babysitter has recently joined him, though she is obviously not as interested in watching me struggle to push my lawn mower all over the yard. This became evident today while I was mowing the lawn and she brought a plate of food over with her to keep her occupied while I proceeded to put on my show of "girl mowing lawn". Even though she does not share in Michael's fascination she still manages to keep her attetion on me and my every move. There is really no way that I can see out of this since I believe it would break Michael's heart not to be able to partake in this ritual. However, this does add to the drama surrounding mowing the lawn as I explained a few days ago because any time that something goes wrong, which is usually the case, Michael is right there asking why the mower stopped working, how was I going to fix it, and just about every other question possible regarding the situation. This is especially hard because at those moments I want to scream terrible obscenities at the lawn mower which is not really the thing I want a child audience for.

So as I read over this post I am realizing that by simply acknowleging the dramas that I encounter each time that I mow the lawn, it seems like they no longer have the same feel to them . Somehow through this process I have dissipated my anxiety about something going wrong everytime I mow the lawn. I have also come to the realization that even though Michael drives me crazy I am unwilling to take something away from him, like watching me mow my lawn, because I can see that somewhere it fulfills a much larger purpose for him than simply annoying me. So I guess the struggle of mowing my lawn is something I am learning to let go of, which I must say feels kind of nice.

Destiny

Do you ever feel like you are destine for certain things in this world? I am not talking about the romantic version of destiny like you are destine for one person or that you hold the key to saving the human race. There are certain things in my life that I feel the universe has decided are going to be my personal responsibility/life challenge. For instance I have the unbelievable luck of always, and I am talking about a very high percentage of the time, having to change the toilet paper on the toilet paper roll. There is rarely a day that goes by where I don't have to change the toilet paper. Let me reassure you that a majority of this takes place at my place of employment where I share the restroom with several people, yet I feel that I share the brunt of the changing of the toilet paper. Well I've come to accept this destiny, even though at times, mostly at my house, I will out right refuse to change it leaving the roll to balance sideways in limbo on the holder while I tempt fate. What I have not come to accept is the destiny that I will forever be cursed when it comes to mowing the lawn.

There has been a struggle ensuing between myself and the care of my lawn ever since I was charged with the responsibility of maintaining the height of my grass. Let me enlighten you with a few of the details. It started when I was renting a house in which I was responsible for the lawn, of course I didn't have a lawnmower, and my jackass landlord did not provide me with one, so what was I to do. Well I didn't want to buy one, so I found a place where you could rent one by the hour. If you have never rented a lawnmower, and don't have a truck, it basically involves putting and gas smelling, filthy, heavy piece of machinery in your trunk and driving cautiously home every time you have to mow the lawn. As you can imagine this is not easy, so my diligence in lawn mowing did not live up to the expectations of my landlord or the city ordinace. Then the pressure was on so I decided that I would buy an old fashion push lawn mower for two reasons. 1)I would be doing my part not to pollute the air anymore than I had to. 2) I was unwilling to accept the idea that there was a possibility that I could own a lawn mower and the damn thing might not start. Now I will not trash the push mower because it is a beautiful thing for those two reasons, however the one thing is does not accommodate is someone who procrastinates until it is absolutely necessary, in which case it just rolls over the grass and forces it lay flat for a short period of time. I so wanted a good relationship with my push mower that I tried for a very long time to make it work. I even went so far as borrowing a weed whacker from a friend and weed whacked my entire yard, on more than one occasion, so that I could start fresh with the push mower. BUT destiny, which is probably more like my unwillingness to be diligent when it comes to lawn care, must be fulfilled.

Eventually I decided to let my brother buy me a traditional gas sputtering, polluting lawn mower. Of course it was used and the damn thing didn't start when I got it home sooo... I was back to alternating between weed whacking my entire yard and using the not so precise push mower. Then my mom had an extra lawn mower and she ask me if I wanted to use it and I tempted fate again and said ok. That work for a handful of times but after the winter season it wouldn't start. Now this whole endeavor has lasted 6 years and I am very testy when it comes to mowing the lawn and everytime I have to do it I am just waiting for something to go wrong. So when my wonderful mother made the offer to buy me a brand new lawn mower this year, with hesitation I accepted. I used it once and it worked beautifully, with the exception that I experience a lot of guilt for using a gas mower. So now what do I have to complain about. Ah tonight I struggled with myself "should I mow the lawn or take it easy--well it is getting long and the neighbor just cut his-- screw it just go do it." The mower starts great, I'm going a long and bang there is this horrific noise and it stops, I move it aside and see the small (like the size of and orange) rock. I think well it just stopped the mower so I try to start it and I discover that the rock has completely destroyed the blade on my new, supposed to work for the rest of my life, lawn mower. But I refuse to accept this as my destiny I will over come, I marched out to my mower tool box in hand and I removed that mangled blade. I will take fate into my own hands, I will fix my lawn mower, I will not let this defeat me.

Yet somehow I can't help but believe that I am still going to mow the lawn with a constant cloud of dread that something is going to go wrong, that it is somehow my destiny. Or maybe some how I am creating my own destiny through my continuous belief that things won't work out.

First Post

So this is my first post I have decided to start blogging because I am looking for a way to honor my everyday experiences and look at my days reflectively. I find myself lost in meaningless thoughts or mindless activities and I am tired of wasting my time in those places. I thought I would try blogging as a means to keep me on my toes and help me to reflect on my days. I feel the need to add the disclaimer that I am not a good speller and I have never learned to embrace grammar so please bear with me.

I chose to title my blog as Turning Tides because I am trying to embrace that fact the my life is constantly changing and I will forever be in transition. I chose to call myself driftwood because I want to be able to let go and float along with my ever changing life and not fight it or go against it but just be in it. Of course I am referring to the natural course of my life and not the state of our world. Because from my view the state of the world invokes nothing but going against the tide that is pulling us away from everything I feel is right. So on a personal level I am learning to go where the tide takes me, but on a social/political level I am struggling because all I want is for the tides to change. Then again it really isn't all that easy for me to separate my personal struggles from those of the world so I guess what I am trying to do is find a balance and trust that I will know when to let go and I will know when to fight.