baggage's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Individuality and the Politics of Lawn Maintenance A postcard perfect picture of all things normal. Anyone walking by my house this morning wouldn't have seen anything out of the ordinary. Just another guy raking up the many leaves that fall has deposited in his front yard, and coercing them into neat bundles of yellow and red. I know, I know. There are those of you in more seasonal parts of the world who laugh when I talk about fall in Southern California. While it takes me about 30 minutes to gather the leaves in my front yard with one lowly plastic home depot rake, it may take some of you hours-maybe several weekends to clean up fall's seasonal deposit of color. Laugh all you want. There is a fall here in my part of the world-and although not nearly as beautiful as the seasons in say, Canada, we Southern Californians do get to experience some of its generosity. The mulberry in front of my home is currently a bright yellow-perfectly silhouetted against a beautiful blue sky. My home, bright yellow itself with hunter green trim, is currently awash with Sir Mulberry's color-making everything extra bright, extra sunny and, yes, extra happy. It's enough to make a guy giddy. But, fall doesn't give me a reprieve from the chores of lawn-ownership. The rye it grows and today is the day for mowing and trimming-which means that the lovely blanket of yellow and red on my lawn has to go-temporarily that is. Most people on my block have nice, trim clean lawns-hardly a trace of fall on them. These hard-working, decent folk rake up their front yard regularly because, well, that's the thing hard-working, decent folk do. Pride of home ownership is synonymous with a neat yard-meaning a yard free of leaves. I followed that herd once. My GF and I happen to enjoy the looks of our home when the driveway is covered with yellow mulberry leaves. Our cats enjoy rolling around in them, and I've grown accustomed to that soft crunch they make underneath my feet as I walk out to my truck in the morning. It gives everything a cozy feel. And, as of the last two years, this cozy feel is worth the extra trouble of raking the leaves into neat piles off to the side of the driveway, mowing the lawn, and then redepositing said leaves back on the yard. Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. You can't just throw the leaves back on the lawn-it doesn't look quite natural. It takes an hour or so, but I usually rake the leaves back out evenly across my lawn in an effort to emulate the natural look it had before I disturbed their seasonal rest. Like an artist, I rake, walk across the street, survey the image, rake again, walk across the street, survey the image and so on and so on...until the lawn looks like it did...well, before I mowed it. The duck-owning woman next door is new to the neighborhood, and, unknown to me, was watching the entire proceedings from her kitchen window. "I don't understand," she said to me while leaning across the hedge that separates our yards. I explained as best as I can the motive for my behavior. She didn't seem to mind. We all have a little strangeness in us, and all you can do is hope the folks that surround you will put up with your little idiosyncrasies. And in return, you try to put up with their's. She looked at me, nodded her head accordingly, and said those words people often say when they're not quite sure what to say: "I see." But, I can tell by the amusement in her voice that she really doesn't see. She doesn't see how cool it is to come home to a home dressed up in fall. She doesn't see that while all the other homes on the block are static in their neatness, my home is awash in color-new leaves everyday in varying shades of yellow and red, and deposited by the upcoming winter in haphhazard piles throughout the front yard. She didn't really see, but that's OK. You can't expect everyone to see the same things you do.
14:55:12 - 2000-11-26 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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