Lawns and War

Today I decided to cancel the lawn service and cut my own lawn. For several years now, I have felt alienated from my lawn. Sad to say, but true. Now, the vegetable garden--that is mine, for I dug it myself. Many pleasant hours have I spent there, reading or soaking up the sun. Part of the reason for my alienation, I think, is that L. was here already when I moved in, so the lawn was just the ground around the house, serviced by men who evidently traveled hundreds of miles--from Mexico!--to do just that. But as we've worked on little projects and planted memories, those mysterious bonds to house and land have been growing. And now I feel ready to embrace the property in its entirety, to experience it more fully. I'm speaking lightly, of course, but I know I will be loving it more--whatever it means to "love" the land.

Once when I was making a month-long retreat at a dharma center--now this is nine or ten hours a day sitting on a cushion meditating--three of us went out during work period and put up fence posts. It's hard to convey everything I felt when we were done, looking at those posts spaced out across the expanse of meadow. The beauty of the setting, feelings of work well done, and even more, the sense of territory, the sense of marking out or claiming--conquering, even--made for a heady mix of emotions.

"Earth is good / but land is better / And best of all / a land still fought for / Even in retreat." Donald Davidson, one of the Southern Agrarians. Land is better than earth, because it carries the notions of human activity, law, and culture. Not a way of looking at nature we normally encounter today, with our romanticized ideas of Earth as Peaceful and Benevolent Mother.

I once read about a British officer of World War I. He had fought with the infantry, and then had been transferred to the new tank outfits. The movement and speed of the tanks opened up a new world of tactical maneuver to him, so used to the static misery of the trenches. And it was gratifying, so much so that he said he suddenly understood how warfare could so absorb men's energies.

Well, "War is the natural activity of man--war, that is, and gardening." I am led to believe Churchill said it. And he knew a thing or two about both.