Suburbia

Suburbia! In the heart of it today, of a sort. A suburban oasis between a lake and a farm place. Western Michigan, pride of our state, in part, and of my father.

The neighborhood reminds me of one I’d known from my childhood - wide streets, pond in center they call a lake, lots of manicured lawns.

Always makes me want a lawn. Or at least the joy and pride it can drum up if properly cared for. I watched three older guys up and at it at 8 o’clock, trimming hedges and whacking weeds, getting their rose bushes just right. For what, you ask? No competition, no blue ribbon. Just a day’s worth of satisfaction.

I want to learn to borrow into their motivation. We’ve all pitched in to help clear out a chore but more often than not we’re doing so with an eye ever on the clock, wanting nothing more than to be done with this communal workload. But to see these old guys at it, putting themselves into their work and getting equally out of it, I want to learn to borrow into that for myself. If it’s a chore than I own or not, if I’m doing it, I want that payload.

Is it regulating attention? Motivations, or ideas of “worthy” tasks? Is it just managing your energy to let your ego feed off of these mundane tasks? Is that too harsh a way of putting it?

I feel like my ego is constantly on the hunt for another makeshift raft to dunk into the water, save its drowning self for another few minutes. What I would give to have it take a permanent spa date and let some new plants grow in its absence.

Maybe that’s it, after all, isn’t it? What I would give, not take? Maybe anything could work, so long as you put it to that use. Even a suburbian lawn and an afternoon of doing nothing but owning the tasks you perform.