They lost things in the grass. A bicycle. Water hoses. A barbecue. Kiddie pool. A roll of barb wire. Coffee cups. A bag of concrete. A swing set. A tether ball pole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These things were not discarded or\nabandoned in the grass. They were lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There had been a first use or non use,\na summoning of some minor or grand initiative (let’s attract ducks\nwith the pool!) some dollars spent, some effort expended, and\nthen…and then…the grass took over and these things were hidden\nand not remembered. What can’t be seen can’t be remembered. At least\nthings can’t. Most people, too. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grass perpetrated no malice taking\nover. It was happy grass going to seed, waving in the wind, uncut,\nchemical free, occasionally integrated with colors from other\nflowering plants. Please don’t call them weeds. Bumblebees rejoiced!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dog wouldn’t shit in the grass. He\nfigured he might get lost, too, or host a flea festival. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard Brautigan called this sort of\ngrass The Revenge of the Lawn. He got that right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grass just wants to be left alone. And\nhere it was! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So why does it make me sad to see it? I\nsuppose it’s because I think first of the people who aren’t mowing\nthis grass and losing things in it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let us ruminate now on the people who\nlet the grass go wild. Or did they? Was there anything conscious in\nthe decision? Or what is a non-decision? Maybe they’d read Brautigan\nand became disciples. Maybe it was some kind of protest against\nmowing, the useless mowing of grass, laboring only for an aesthetic.\nAll that snarling noise, black smoke and sharpened metal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If only the people had invested in a\nflywheel mower! Now that’s something bucolic and makes a pleasant\ntrilling sound. A flywheel also misses most of the dandelions. They\nescape the blades and go on tilting at attention, like tiny flags in\na groovy country. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wait! A flywheel mower was also lost in\nthe grass. They let the handle fall to the ground one afternoon and\nit vanished. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can’t really say people who lose\nthings in the grass have gone to seed. I used to believe that, but\nI’ve changed my mind, my definition of the phrase. People who have\ngone to seed are waving in the wind, uncut, (usually) chemical free,\nspreading their wild seeds and sharing the field with other plants\nand tiny creatures of the field. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are not part of America’s\nmanicured lawn. They are not conforming. They will become part of a\nmeadow! Or a glade! Who wouldn’t prefer that to a lawn? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most. It’s so much easier being part of\na lawn. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think about something else, too. The\nwilder the grass gets the less likely invaders, such as blackberries,\ngorse, scotch broom, bamboo and capitalism, will find a foothold,\nthen spread, spread, spread and then occupy forever. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also consider this: a perfectly\noperational riding lawnmower stood parked at the edge of the grass,\nnear a large spruce. Actually there was another mower as well! No,\nwait, it wasn’t a riding lawnmower. It was a small tractor with a\nmower deck. It could have cut the \u201clawn\u201d with two passes. Five\nminutes. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both were shiny and new and cost\nthousands of dollars each. Give it a couple of years, and they’ll be\nlost in the grass, too, near the rowing machine and council of lawn\ngnomes. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So if the people in the house who lose\nthings in the grass have not gone to seed, where have they gone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are merely gone. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Americans dissipate. In great numbers\nthese days. Grass doesn’t. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the grass had been a front lawn,\ndisheveled for sure, but a lawn nonetheless, a lawn at the end of a\nlong gravel driveway. A home stands there, barely. It would become\nlost one day, along with the people in it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A house lost in the grass is sad when\nso many people live in tents on concrete or out of their jalopies. Or\nride a bicycle 10 miles in the rain with a ukulele to play for a free\nbreakfast. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grass where things are lost is not\nWalt Whitman’s grass. Walt’s wild grass had promise. Every single\nspear. You put a spear in your mouth and you feel wild. You walk with\na spear in the mouth, and you don’t feel lost at all. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They lost things in the grass. A bicycle. Water hoses. A barbecue. Kiddie pool. A roll of barb wire. Coffee cups. A bag of concrete. A swing set. A tether ball pole. These things were not discarded or abandoned in the grass. They were lost. There had been a first use or non use, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5139,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136\/revisions\/5139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}