Mowing the Lawn

This afternoon my roommate determined she would mow the lawn. I think our lawn has probably been mowed only about three or four times since the start of this academic year, haha. This seems to somewhat bother my roommates, but it really doesn’t bother me much at all. I’m not sure what that says about me, but it doesn’t. The grass doesn’t grow up super high, and these lovely little white and magenta flowers come up in patches. I thinks it’s even a little bit charming. Anyways, my roommate borrowed our neighbor’s lawn mower to get it done this afternoon before the rain comes. The lawn mower is one of those big ones that you can sit on, drive around and steer. It has always seemed so silly and absurd to me that people possess these big, powerful mowers to manicure their teeny-tiny lawns. The lawns in my neighborhood are in no way large enough to require and thus justify that kind of miniature industrial mower. I saw her mowing the lawn from the window, cutting the heads off of the flower patches I had become fond of, methodically making her way across each inch of our lawn. I had briefly thought about running out and shouting over the loud roar of the mower, and asking her to spare the flower patches. I quickly realized how absurd this would seem and I stopped myself.  This particular time, as I watched her on the mower, it occurred more silly to me than ever before. The reason being because she was cutting something she was entirely detached from, her feet weren’t even on the ground as with a regular mower. The separation between her and the earth being altared was absolute. Having just studied Wendell Berry’s ecology, in which he discusses the sad separation of man and the land and the consequences of this, seeing this bothered me. Another thing that I found bothersome was the inefficient way in which lawn mowers guzzle gas that I learned about in class. I found myself wondering about the efficiency and effectiveness of the motorless, old school lawnmowers. This class has caused me to question a lot of our methods that I previously just thought of as the way things are done. But it seems to me that our methods could certainly be improved upon. Disclaimer: I love my roommate and do not hold the act of mowing the lawn against her, but honor her for serving  me and my roommates in this way :)