You will notice I am not sharing a recipe today–well, maybe not one for food, but maybe for how to enjoy a task you wouldn’t think is all that.
One of my favorite, sort of, things to do is to get on our zero-turn lawn mower and tackle the approximately 1 1/2 acres that is our “lawn.” You might say that is crazy, but it is actually very cathartic, or Zen or whatever you want to call it.
I enjoy the routine of it and it doesn’t require a lot of thought to accomplish the task, other than making sure you don’t make any divots or skids if the ground is a little wet.
As I am riding around, making straight rows up and down or doing diagonal cuts because I alternate the pattern each week during the season (sometimes twice a week if the grass is on a growth spurt)–my mind is presenting a multitude of thoughts and ideas that I hope I will remember when I get back to the house, so that I can write down the ones I want to pursue.
Sometimes it’s a little tricky trying to stay on one thought. Between the roar of the engine and the sound of the mowing deck, it can get pretty loud and distracting. And don’t even let me get a tune in my head from earlier because the constant “beat” of the mower just plays that song in a loop in my head and that’s all she wrote. I am singing it all throughout the cutting.
Sometimes I have big headphones on that can drown out the clatter, and mine have a radio inside but it only picks up one station and the volume isn’t loud enough–can’t hear the base and that is so annoying. So I might just not even turn that thing on. Recently, I wore my workout pouch (I can wear this around my waist and it holds very thin stuff), put my phone in it and used my Bluetooth earbuds to listen to music. Still couldn’t hear the base, but it was a little better!
Anyway, I share all of this with you to let you know that you can find joy and purpose in the most mundane tasks.
And talk about instant gratification! When I am done mowing, the results are spectacular and I know that no one is going to mess it up in the next 5 minutes. You know what I’m talking about. How long do you get to enjoy your clean any-room-in-the-house?
I hope I can write to you about some of the musings I have come up with on my zero-turn mower. I am working on one about “divots” as life lessons that might be kind of interesting.
Well, we have had what seems like weeks of rain here lately. I got part of the mowing in yesterday but was afraid I would run out of gas. I have a new supply this morning, so I am headed outside now to mow to my heart’s content. Wonder what will come to mind today?