The Small Victories

Sept 13 2015

The lawn machine cuts ruler straight.

Leaving a precise line

between thick leggy grass

and my finely manicured strip.

Which unravels in my wake

as if I had set into motion

a tightly rolled carpet

down the length of the lawn.

A verdant runner

lush as a putting green.

This garden tool

is an indiscriminate leveller.

Weeds, mowed down

dandelions severed,

crab-grass

made to look respectable.

For the time being, at least.

How irresistible,

this illusion of order

in an unpredictable world;

the meticulous back and forth

in neat parallel rows,

the border edged exactly

mulch evenly spread.

And the smell of fresh cut grass.

Which, with the heady scent of 2-stroke gas

lights up my brain,

the nostalgia

of summer Sunday afternoons

in furthest suburbia.

Come winter, I will clear the driveway

down to asphalt black,

cutting the same straight path

carving the same sheer wall

out of standing snow

as I did unruly grass.

Methodically back and forth,

until the rectangle

is reduced to order;

glistening pavement as decorative art,

obsidian glass

set in white enamel snow.

How satisfying

to gaze upon completed work.

Even knowing

that nothing lasts.

That the neighbours don't keep track.

That in the fullness of time

a haphazard job

would look just as well.

That chores come and go

and come again,

as predictably

as the seasons change.

Because this is what I crave.

The structure of daily life.

The reassurance

of regularity, and habit.

The reliability

of not having to depend

on anyone else.

The small weekly victories

of order, control

that are mine, alone

to execute

and savour.

A well cut lawn and perfectly cleared driveway are, I suppose, the ultimate bourgeois conceits. My house hardly looks like a real estate brochure or a House Beautiful showcase. But I do take a small private satisfaction looking back on a freshly cut lawn, a nicely shovelled drive.

There is the pleasure of repetitive mindless work. There is the feeling of virtue in doing what needs to be done. There is the gratification of physical labour.

And there is a dark side as well: the subtle -- and sometimes overt -- social pressure to conform; the sense of measuring up, of being judged.

Our manicured front lawns are like a rebuke to nature, which wants to be fecund and wild and diverse. We carve out these temporary illusions of simple order. But check out any place that's been abandoned for any length of time, and it becomes clear that our efforts are only temporary, our feeble attempts to confer order mere hubris.