I mowed my parents' lawn this week. It's amazing how a person can go for years without doing something that the person did on a regular basis while growing up, and the motions and patterns come back without any thought. Everything from filling the machine up with gas to the actual pattern I mowed the lawn in (this is very important - I'm a huge fan of patterns when cutting the grass...the only question is which one do I choose? I had about five that I regularly rotated through) - all of it is still second nature and doesn't require any effort or great mental capacity. I'm pretty sure I could cut their grass in my sleep without difficulty.
While mowing my mom & dad's lawn (which takes 90 minutes...so a person has plenty of time to reflect), I was struck by how much things have changed. Sure, I've mowed their lawn a few times in the last five years (like when the parental units went to Canada and Alaska for two months back when my dad retired). But I didn't listen to an iPod while doing yard work before. The trees have grown a lot since the last time I mowed the lawn...let alone grown a lot since I was a kid. The neighborhood is different now. The callouses on my thumbs are from rowing, not from running a lawn mower around the yard every week for six months out of the year.
I remember playing games in the back yard with all the neighborhood kids - kickball, softball, football, tag. I remember getting into a knock-down-drag-out fight with the only other girl in the neighborhood (I don't count the girls next door, who didn't really like playing outside and weren't at all tomboys) the day before she left to live in Atlanta with her grandmother. (I still can't tell you what it was we were fighting about.) I remember riding my bike in a circle along the edge of the property lines in the back yard and practically killing all the grass there, I did it so much one summer. I remember when my dad and brother built the shed - which was the first time in my life I ever operated a circular saw (I think it was my brother who let me...pretty sure my dad wasn't around).
I remember the first time I ever got to use the riding lawn mower by myself (a person had to be heavy enough to engage the weight safety mechanism in the seat in order to engage the blade - I'm pretty sure every time I leaned forward to reach the blade lever, the safety mechanism killed the engine 'cause I was too light to keep the thing going)...and then later accidentally sawing off the top of a paving brick with it when I was about 13. (It's a miracle the thing still worked...the brother ran into the garage with it once, and I also got it stuck on a chain link fence one time...and any other number of abuses we did to and with it.)
The smell of freshly cut grass along with those memories of a more carefree time in my life right as the sun was setting? Priceless.
(Though that doesn't mean I want to get in the habit of mowing that lawn again. Once every few years is plenty often, thanks muchly, Mom & Dad.)
While mowing my mom & dad's lawn (which takes 90 minutes...so a person has plenty of time to reflect), I was struck by how much things have changed. Sure, I've mowed their lawn a few times in the last five years (like when the parental units went to Canada and Alaska for two months back when my dad retired). But I didn't listen to an iPod while doing yard work before. The trees have grown a lot since the last time I mowed the lawn...let alone grown a lot since I was a kid. The neighborhood is different now. The callouses on my thumbs are from rowing, not from running a lawn mower around the yard every week for six months out of the year.
I remember playing games in the back yard with all the neighborhood kids - kickball, softball, football, tag. I remember getting into a knock-down-drag-out fight with the only other girl in the neighborhood (I don't count the girls next door, who didn't really like playing outside and weren't at all tomboys) the day before she left to live in Atlanta with her grandmother. (I still can't tell you what it was we were fighting about.) I remember riding my bike in a circle along the edge of the property lines in the back yard and practically killing all the grass there, I did it so much one summer. I remember when my dad and brother built the shed - which was the first time in my life I ever operated a circular saw (I think it was my brother who let me...pretty sure my dad wasn't around).
I remember the first time I ever got to use the riding lawn mower by myself (a person had to be heavy enough to engage the weight safety mechanism in the seat in order to engage the blade - I'm pretty sure every time I leaned forward to reach the blade lever, the safety mechanism killed the engine 'cause I was too light to keep the thing going)...and then later accidentally sawing off the top of a paving brick with it when I was about 13. (It's a miracle the thing still worked...the brother ran into the garage with it once, and I also got it stuck on a chain link fence one time...and any other number of abuses we did to and with it.)
The smell of freshly cut grass along with those memories of a more carefree time in my life right as the sun was setting? Priceless.
(Though that doesn't mean I want to get in the habit of mowing that lawn again. Once every few years is plenty often, thanks muchly, Mom & Dad.)
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