Grass

Well there's been quite an absence of writing of late and for that i must apologise. My excuse: Wimbledon. It's amazing what you can do with some well manicured grass. People will come from all over the world not only to play but to watch. Until today this was the only reason i could think for keeping your garden in a nice condition: you planned on painting some lines on it, putting up a net and maybe even some fences and ultimately playing tennis. This all changed today when i discovered the joys of gardening. It wasn't like this was my first time gardening, but it now feels like all the other times i thought i was "gardening" i have only been working in the garden to make money. I wouldn't say that i felt "at one with nature" in a way i do at other times but even though i was killing and maiming plants (weeds and grass respectively, don't worry i'll still get paid) it didn't feel like a domination of nature or even destructive. Maybe i was taming it. A strange concept but it felt more like guiding a child to stop being rude or endangering itself through it's actions than constricting or limiting. Maybe moulding is the verb i'm looking for. I could smell the garden, feel it, see it. For a long time now i have been considering spending a day, as an experiment, trying to make every sense operate at all times and be conscious of each sense individually. Today suggested that a garden would be a nice place to do this and this, i think, is why so many people are attracted to gardening. It's not about dominion over nature it's about working with nature and very much a journey rather than a destination, a journey in which you are always accompanied by your senses.
     Now before today i've always thought that when i had my own garden i would buy gargantuan packets of mixed seeds, throw them around the garden and just let them grow. Even if all my seeds were promptly eaten by birds i would still be pleased with just having long, overgrown grass. This is because i like long grass. It is soft underfoot and cool even on hot days, also i prefer it aesthetically to shorter grass. The other advantage is that animals, and when i say animals i particularly mean cats, will be able to play in it. The amount of times i have seen a hint of sadness in the eyes of my cats when they see the lawnmower - to accompany the fear of the terrifyingly noisy beast that it is - is...well, admittedly...none but i like to think they enjoy stalking pretend prey in the grass (or prey that is an ant and thus does not constitute prey), i mean their stalking looks so much less enjoyable in short grass. Now, many lines down a paragraph that started "before today..." you may enjoy my but, oh that sounds terrible, you may enjoy my use of but, still a bit weird...you may...well...but today i started to understand why people would go to all the trouble of mowing the lawn (except where it is a duty of yours by law - apparently my readers state-side have lawn-mowing quotas, this is incredible, i mean literally unbelievable, can anyone deny or confirm this?). By juxtaposing the tidy lawn with the flowers or the patio or the (if you're really into your garden) water feature, the latter looks even more beautiful. Don't get me wrong, a lawn can be nice to look at but only in the way that you look nice in that photo taken in front of the Ngorongoro Crater (fell free to fill in anywhere truly magnificent that you have been) or the cloth in Cezanne's 'Still Life with Apples' can be when compared to the jug or the eponymous apples. The spectacular looks even more so because of the banal.
     Earlier i said that gardening was a journey. I am all for journeys; i love the journey but what puts me off actually gardening is that it's a project you never finish. You have to maintain it year round, year on year. This, however, is also the beauty of gardening. It is a relationship like any other (well my friends don't die when i'm on holiday because i didn't give them water or suddenly get eaten by slugs overnight, and i hope yours don't either, but you see what i mean), you have to nourish it day on day and keep up your side in order for it to blossom. These gardening terms doing anything for you? I'll just go then.