rachel’s blog

Last evening I updated my Facebook status to read:

Rachel needs a sheep. The grass in her front yard is getting tall.

For those of you not familiar with Facebook, a status is simply a frequently-updated tidbit of information about yourself, always written in the third person. I live near the heart of downtown, so my property is obviously not zoned for agriculture, but after struggling to mow my yard this evening, I am fully convinced that buying a sheep would have been easier.

OK. This is how normal people mow grass: they get out the shiny red or green lawnmower, top off the tank with fresh gasoline, yank the pull-cord a few times (or perhaps turn the key), generate a ridiculous amount of noise pollution while cutting the grass, and then go back inside for an ice-cold beer. Maybe if I followed their example, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to mow my yard tonight.

I own a shiny red lawnmower, but I haven’t used it in almost four years. My renters used it while they were living in my house, which was great, but before they moved out and I moved back in, I purchased a push-reel mower at a yard sale. It’s lightweight, quiet, and doesn’t burn fuel, so the shiny red mower has just been sitting in my basement since last June. The push-reel mower works very well when the grass is a nice, reasonable length.

But it wasn’t.

I hadn’t mowed the grass yet this spring, so it was getting quite tall. I decided that it was time to get out the shiny red mower. It wouldn’t start. This is when the idea of lawnmower spirituality began to develop… I went ahead and mowed the back yard with the push-reel mower, but I knew that it wouldn’t like the thick, tall grass in the front yard. So as I listened to the whirr of the mower blades cutting the normal-height grass in the back yard, I prayed a sort of panicked prayer.

When it was time to mow the front yard, I fiddled with the shiny red mower again. No luck. (God, please!) OK, fine. I decided to TRY the front yard with the push-reel mower. To say that it was challenging would be an  understatement. (God, give me strength!) I was tired, I was hungry, and I was frustrated. (God, where is Mr. Right when I need him?)

I was tempted to give up on the whole thing, but I still maintained hope that the shiny red mower would roar to life, so I fiddled with it some more and tried again. (God, pleeeeease let the mower start.) The blasted thing refused to start. My front yard was half mowed and looked terrible, so I had no choice but to persevere with the push-reel mower. (God, please don’t let my neighbors think I’m an idiot.)

Pride is a funny thing. Pride is what kept me going when I was tempted to give up. I was far too proud to quit and admit defeat, and I even started rehearsing how I might turn down a neighbor’s offer to help. At the same time, my pride wanted me to put the stupid push-reel mower away, go inside, and maintain my dignity. I felt like a fool out there.

If you think I’m going to end the story by saying that a Hispanic man named Jesús showed up and mowed my lawn for me, you’re going to be terribly disappointed. Nothing extraordinary happened. I finally finished mowing the yard and vowed that I would never again let it get out of control! You might think this sounds crazy, but now that my yard looks like a neatly manicured golf course (or something like that…), I’m actually thankful that I had to struggle with the push-reel mower.

If the shiny red mower had worked like I wanted it to, I wouldn’t have thought to talk to the Creator of the grass.