like a person who has never mowed the lawn before. I'm using our new push mower, the one I pestered my husband to get when our gas-powered mower broke. With this one there is no gas tank to fill. No cord, string? to pull (I don't know the proper lawnmower terminology). Just grip the handle and go.
I have no strategy. No system. Instead of mowing in straight lines like my husband does, starting at one section of the lawn and making my way carefully, strip by strip, to the other side, or going diagonally, how I've seen our neighbor do, I shuffle around all over the place, easily distracted
by my own thoughts--about our son who is getting married this year and how happy I am for him, about time passing, and loved ones passing, how I don't like the word passing and I'm not sure I believe anymore that any of us go anywhere, except in the here and now,
and what do we do when the here and now is so scary, with smoke settling over us and atmospheric rivers flowing, the ocean roiling like a hot tub? All I can think to do is finish mowing,
around the flower beds (where I mow triangles), the trees (figure eights), our Little Free Library (quick, jerky back-and-forths so as to avoid disturbing the plants). I planted these a year ago and this season they have come alive, the branches dipping and bending ingeniously around the library frame,
small bees whirring around the flowers. I’ve never seen this kind of bee before. I forget the name of the plant. And how does the branch do that, grow at such an angle,
its reach tapped out and blocked from the sun, before finding another way?
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