On Mowing a Straight Line

Mow, mow, mow your lawn...
Originally uploaded by bcostin.

I mowed my lawn this weekend. I've mowed this yard hundreds of times over almost 20 years. I know the contours of the lawn, where the tree roots push up into the grass, where some rock outcroppings lay just below the surface, and where the run-offs from hard rains have trenched ruts into the soil. I have a mowing pattern that I always use, cross-cutting in certain places and otherwise following the familiar path that seems most efficient. It's all mapped out in my head. I do it the way I always do it.

It gets pretty hot in Missouri during the summer and in July and August you have to decide whether to water extensively or let the grass go dormant. I compromised, keeping the front yard fairly green and letting the back yard go. It's a pretty sad sight out there--splotchy brown spots everywhere, grass shoots spindly and sickly, and some areas that may never bounce back without seeding.

All of that is bad enough, but what really gets me is what happens to my mowing pattern. In these conditions there are a lot of places that don't need mowing at all. It is silly to follow the pattern because you would be pushing the mower over dead grass. But then it gets to be a jumble. In some places the grass is so frail that you easily lose track of the line you cut on the previous pass. As a result you find yourself zig-zagging all over the place, then back-tracking when it looks like you missed some spots.

The mower ran out of gas. I started with a full tank and it never runs out. But this time the tank was empty before I finished, which means that I covered more ground cutting less grass. And at these gas prices no less. (Thankfully there is an election in a few weeks so the prices are dropping a bit so as to elect more Republicans. I can't imagine how disgusted I would have been had this happened when the prices were at full oil company gouging rates like they were a few weeks ago.)

All I know is this. I had a path that I always follow and when the state of the lawn did not allow me to follow it I wandered as if in the wilderness, unable to mow a straight and efficient line, doubling back on myself without realizing it, and even leaving myself unsure that I had got it all.

I thought of a story I had heard about a white missionary who found himself lost in an African jungle. He finally stumbled into a village, explained his plight, and asked for help getting where he needed to go. A tribesman agreed and led him into the jungle, using his machete to hack away at the thick brush. After a while the missionary, unable to discern where they were heading, began to quiz his guide. "Where are we going; where is the path?," he demanded to know. The guide responded, "Bwana, in this jungle there is no path. I am the path."

Sometimes life doesn't conform to the paths and maps with which we try to chart our way. The straight line may not always be the best way to journey between two points, or even if it is the best way it may not be feasible. Sometimes we have to look around and seek navigational help from places we never would have imagined. Sometimes that is deep within ourselves.

Staying on the straight and narrow is good advice I guess, even for mowing. But when scorching Missouri summers do in my yard my familiar Briggs and Stratton mower and I need to travel a different route. It makes me restless, feels aimless, doesn't seem right somehow. But maybe a little wandering in the wilderness is okay now and then. Keeps us humble, and hopefully nimble. There will be times when we discover that the paths we've come to count on may not always be there.

But the lawn still has to be mowed.