This past weekend I mowed my lawn and my dad’s lawn. This is something that I do practically every week during the spring, summer, and early fall.
Far from being onerous, lawn mowing is an activity that I moderately enjoy.
Lawn mowing provides an aerobic workout, and I utilize the time productively by listening to audiobooks or foreign languages. (Sometimes I listen to podcasts, too.)
But there is another benefit to lawn mowing. Lawn mowing is a finite, clearly definable task, and its completion provides a minor sense of accomplishment. When one mows a suburban lawn, one has brought a condition of order out of chaos.
Is that reflection a little too “zen” for a weekly household task? Perhaps. But lawn mowing is something that I enjoy more as I get older. When I was a young fellow, I never understood older men who enjoyed cutting the grass. (My maternal grandfather was one of them. That man loved to cut grass.)
But now that I’m 58, I get it, somehow.
-ET