Luckily she is thousands of miles away right now and cannot reach out and strangle me for what I am about to write.
This post is devoted to a dear friend who recently wrote to me, "Have you heard my theory about white picket fences and grassy lawns? It's like: we water the grass; we fertilize the grass; we aerate the grass. Then we cut it. The more it grows, the more we cut it, the better we feel. Except it doesn't make me feel better. It makes me crazy. And then everyone looks at me and they're like: she's fucking crazy. Why doesn't she love to grow and cut grass like everyone else?"
Indeed. How long have we been doing this to ourselves? I recall when Buzz and I purchased a big house with a big lawn. I should have known better from the look on his face every time we viewed a home with a big yard... but alas, his will was not as strong as my plea for an herb garden and red lava rocks around the trees. We moved in, and immediately I got started on my beautiful front yard. Oh, how glorious it would be when the rocks shouted, "See my beautiful intense redness against this luscious green grass and worship me!"
So, we arrived home from the Home "Improvement" Store, with our eight or so bags of rocks. We sprinkled them around the trees only to discover that we didn't have nearly enough to cover the ground in the manicured portion of the lawn. Back to the store we went... to get more rocks. Again, the same thing. No matter how many rocks we bought, it seems they would never cover the ground we needed them to. Finally, we bought several more bags and said enough is enough, no more. And at that very moment, the war began.
The weekends came, and hanging over us was a the burdensome thought: YARD WORK. Buzz would have to mow the grass. I would have to trim the trees, pick up leaves, and... pull the weeds from between the rocks.
The rocks were quickly overcome by weeds. The tarp underneath did nothing to stop them. Weed killer only turned the red rocks white. Over and over and over again... the weeds invaded my life and wreaked havoc on our lawn. Why did we do this? Neither of us were "lawn people." Neither of us wanted to spend our time this way. We never really spent any time in the yard other than to "work" in it. Otherwise, we only went through these motions to ensure our property value and that we complied with the Neighborhood Association. The Cycle of Maintenance. It can be such an exhausting routine.
We learned so much about ourselves in those years. We knew that once we moved out of that house, we would never have a yard again.
But other lessons were not so easily learned. Everything that meant... the desire for the aesthetic, the need for approval and attention, the need to keep ourselves busy doing the things that humans are "supposed" to do to occupy their time... this would not be so easily rectified.
How much do you need to own to be happy? How many dresses, pairs of shoes, comic book art, jars of peanut butter? How many items can you fill your home with until the fear subsides, that without it all, you are invisible? When will the insatiable need to "acquire" and "consume" end? You are taught all of your life to be "successful", and now, in our world, that means so many things: college degree, nice car, nice home, nice clothes...
For me, it had to do with launching myself so far from where I started. Consider that my life began in a dirt pit, surrounded by vicious dogs that didn't know whether to raise me as their own or eat me. A nice man came along and rescued me from the dirt pit, and left the dogs to snarl and gnaw on one another. But that dirt pit and the sound of their growling haunted me. The only way to prove to everyone that I did not share any qualities with the dogs in that pit was to run faster and harder toward "goals" and polish myself into a shining gem of a human being. That didn't come without a price, and many stumbles along the way. But the process, for as much as I learned, took its toll on me. I wanted more - nothing was ever enough. "I'm sorry, I only scored 100% on this test? Surely there is extra credit..."
Funny thing: Becoming who you need to be, to find true happiness, has nothing to do with TRYING to become that person. The more you try to achieve this, the further from that you will be. In all my desire... in all my longing to escape the trauma of the dirt pit... my fear kept the dogs in my rear view mirror at all times.
Over ten years ago I had a dream that I recall clearly and think about often: I was living in a community and all the houses were haunted by evil spirits. After much pleading, I convinced the whole town to burn the houses down. I woke up, but when went back to sleep, the houses were in tact, and I was horrified. I got in my car and drove away as fast as I could... but in my rear view mirror I could see a tiny white speck getting larger and larger. Something was getting closer to me. It was a dog. The faster I drove the car, the faster the dog ran, and soon it was running beside me, foaming at the mouth and trying to attack me through the window. I managed to speed up a bit and get past it, and woke up. Again, I went back to sleep and was again in the car, driving. I happened upon a small town, and parked the car. When I got to the town square, there was a faceless master and his dog, waiting for me.
Moral of this Post: don't feed your dog peanut butter. The end.
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