Mowing the Lawn

It took some time for me to notice that my wife was up and working outside. I was in my futon bed trying to go back to sleep, thinking that I had not had enough sleep, when I heard the knocking-like sound near the front door of the villa. The sound, rather hollow and not repetitive, was not exactly like knocking. I assumed therefore that my wife was taking something out of the storage by the front door and made the sound when she shut the door of the storage room. I went back to sleep afterward.

I woke up from a short dream, noticing that she was sitting by the kitchen table. I asked her about the time and she told me that it was around seven-thirty. I decided to get up. She told me that she couldn't wait pulling out weeds and cutting the overgrown lawn until I got up. I asked her when she got up."Well, I think it was around five thirty," she said. I was impressed with her vitality.

After having breakfast I went out to see what my wife had done. It was a mess, not because she had done anything wrong but because she could not catch up with the wilderness nature had produced during the two months of our absence. I started to gather drawn-out weeds and cut grasses and, then, involved myself in mowing the lawn. It was only after my wife came out and told me what time it was that I, drenched with sweat and mud, decided that I should stop the work no matter how unsatisfactory it looked. Two hours passed like a half an hour.

It is sometimes said that humans are "visual animals." This is because we are preoccupied with the information obtained through our visual system. Visual arts, tourism, gymnastics, sports, racing, scuba diving, sky diving, space flight, and even eating cannot be fully enjoyed without seeing. Gardening may be one of those human endeavors born out of this preoccupation. No matter how strongly we are attracted by nature, we seldom give up modifying nature when nature looks truly natural.

- MT