never growing up

I set out later yesterday afternoon for a stroll through Meadow Park, maybe a half-mile long curvy, tarred, oblong path through trees and a (thanks to the rains) running stream down a concrete causeway. But, mostly grass. Bright green emerald grass glowing in the sinking sunlight. Rolling, fanning out, playground for dogs, families, little kids and lost souls.

The grass had been cut earlier in the day, eyes and nose testifying to that fact. Yes. The fragrance of freshly cut grass. Hmmm. For me I am often transported to my past as much if not more by the life of a lawn’s bouquet, or another smell, than the tracks of a city’s professional equipment. Even more than what my eyes say.

When I was little back in Massachusetts I remember it was my mom and me taking turns cutting the lawn. She taught me to slightly overlap the cut of the previous row, so as to leave no channel of sticking up, uncut grass. We always had an electric lawnmower, which increased the invitation for mindfullness. And gray ducktape wrapped along the orange cord here and there, further testimony my mindfulness could (can) always use some work. I made my fair share of childhood moolah cutting other people’s grass by what I learned from my mom.

All this, something of a magic carpet, zooming east 3000 miles, the lawns and grass there swadled in snow Tuesday afternoon. When the fragrance of a freshly mowed lawn sets my mind dancing.