Mowing As A Metaphor: Care-taking and Care-Giving

Today is June 7th. 

My honey, John Deere

I used to make it a point to mow the lawn on June 7th, but them days are long gone. As is my beloved tractor. It was the zen of mowing that I loved. The idea that there was a beginning, a middle, and an end. With earbuds in place, a Broadway show on the iPod, and the big green mufflers over my ears, I got approximately 54 minutes of total alone time. FIL would stand on the deck, moving his arms like one of those guys guiding planes on the tarmac, pointing to a line of lawn I may have missed, but I couldn't hear a damn thing but the music.  That was the good part. I couldn't hear squat.

Those 54 minutes were important to me. Those were 54 minutes during which I could quiet my mind, focus on something specific, and not be afraid of the next minutes. Yeah, I was always afraid of what disaster would strike next. It was never an if, it was a when. But as long as I could drive the mower up, around, and down, all was right in my world. For the moment, anyway. 

But I always mowed on June 7th (unless it was Shabbos because I never mowed on Shabbos) because that's Ziggy's secular date of departure. The secular part is the rationale here. Ziggy was fiercely devoted to his suburban lawn, and caring for it fell to me. Mowing, weeding, feeding...all symbolic acts meant to preserve something. I couldn't do much for the lawn at the cemetery, but I could take care of his lawn.

Sometimes, when I feel particularly bleak, I remind myself that care-taking  and care-giving are inexorably linked. Sure, it's easier to care for and about things you love, that confront you, that force you to pay attention. Other things may dance around the periphery, but don't fall into either care-taking or  care-giving categories. Thinking about stuff like that can make your head explode. Or, it can make you revisit some priorities. 

I happen to know a guy who is up at the Enbridge Line 3 protest. I envy him. He's putting his convictions on the line. I happen to think, along with a couple of petrol-engineers I know, that this pipeline is a bad idea for a whole host of reasons. From The Washington Post: 

The intensifying conflict over Line 3 has been driven in part by Indigenous activists who see a double-barreled threat in the pipeline: a carbon-producing fossil fuel project at a time of worsening climate change and one that also risks polluting tribal lands in the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Emboldened by some victories — such as the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, and the gatherings at Standing Rock — protesters hope to intensify pressure on the Biden administration to suspend the pipeline permit before the project is completed.

Land mismanagement coupled with fossil fuels is a continuous recipe for disaster. We already know what fossil fuels do to the environment, yet no one seems to be in a hurry to stop its usage.  Yeah, yeah, cars and power plants. I know the drill. But if this was your house, wouldn't you be working to keep it healthy for your family? The pipelines have long been under fire as environmental and cultural hazards, yet they keep trying to push them through our state. If Enbridge wants a pipeline to Superior, let them run the damn thing through Thunder Bay and keep it the hell outta Minnesota. 

That pipeline is not taking serious good care of this state, tribal lands, or the air we breathe. If we cannot take a moment to pop our heads out of our collective ass, we deserve to keep breathing methane and other fossil fuels.

I can hear Ziggy in my head: You can't fix stupid.

Trickle down stupidity, just like trickle down economics, doesn't work. This has been proven about a zillion times, but some politicians like to take it out for a spin every so  often the same way people ride around in Hummers telling you they're fuel efficient. Sure they are. Not.

I can hear Ziggy in my head: The size and the decibels of a vehicle when added together are inversely proportional to the size of the owner's winkie.

Regardless, there are some pols who think We, the People, don't notice this stuff, that if they say it, we're gonna buy it hook, line, and sinker. Just like the people who still think the election was stolen. They will never be disabused of that notion because people who tell them "Trust me" are lying through their teeth. They're not caring for their constituency; they are caring only for themselves.  

But lawns and lands are not even close to where our care-taking, care-giving responsibilities end. Not by a long shot. There is a democracy at stake here. Sitting by while voter suppression is the legislation du jour is bad governance. If you're still grousing about electoral fraud, why aren't you demanding recounts of all the Republican elections as well? Or only if you win, it's fair and square? Declaring your allegiance to a habitual liar and unrepentant huckster is bad for your constituents. 

Can you say double standard, boys and girls?

Sometimes, you have to listen to what the hucksters are selling. If a political party comes along and tells its constituency, 

we're against:

• increased access to voting, 
• increased access to affordable health care
• increase access to reproductive health care
• increased access to early education
• increased access to modern curricula
• increased civil equity in gender, religion, and sexual orientation matters
• increased background checks and sensible gun legislation

you can safely bet your last buck they are also against a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. These are not the folks working toward a just and civil society, they are in it for the money and the power, in that order. These people are privateers and they are just like pirates on ye olde open seas. And just like those pirates, they are trying to steal you blind, hoodwink you with their fancy ideas that this is for the sake of small government. Don't buy that precept. It's garbage, and figuring it out is not rocket science. 

Jeff and Mark Bezos

But speaking of rocket science, Jeff  Bezos is  taking his little brother on a joy ride into outer space. Excuse me for  being a little sister AND the mother of  sons, but any time an older child says he's taking a younger sibling on a joyride of any kind, it's time to start worrying BIG time. This is from the same school of thought as, Frozen flag poles taste the best. Like a chocolate Tootsie Pop. You should try it!  

Seriously? Lick a flag pole? Go up in your big brother's rocket ship? Even if this rocket ship is one giant safety feature, how selfish do you have to be to risk a sibling's life? Meanwhile, where is their mother? She's alive, but why hasn't she grounded them both?!?!? Has the woman slipped a cog? 

All of which circles back to caring for a lawn. Which by now you realize is a metaphor for figuring out what is important. 

I cared for the lawn with organic, not hostile fertilizers. I avoided weed killers. I kept a wide apron between my lawn and the pond to avoid run-off. I worked diligently to remove buckthorn and other invasive species from that apron....and I have the scars to prove it. I sowed prairie flowers and grasses back there to help suffocate as many of the non-native weeds that I could. I have no idea if the new owners of my house held on to the information I left them about the protective apron. I don't know what they use for fertilizer, but I hope they pay attention to the needs of the big pond. I hope the loons still stop there on their migration route.

I was a caregiver for that plot of land, and the longer I am away from that role, the more I realize that I still do care, and that I miss being the steward of that small strip of Mendota Heights. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Whether you are care-taking or care-giving,

make time to care for yourself. 

If you are stressed and burned out, 

you won't do the job you want to do.