Our neighbors are gone again. They are retired and neither has any children so they often take trips, sailing to Bermuda, hiking in Turkey, or looking for life on the Galapagos. We stay here and hold down the fort and foliage. They often are away for several weeks and ask us to look out for their house, water a plant or two and have our gardener handle their lawn while they are gone.
Typically this is not a problem for us. We are pretty responsible and the gardeners come twice a month so we have a few chances to get them over there. Except this time, we forgot. This time the gardeners came and went without a glance towards their lawn. This time my husband told the gardeners lets wait 3 weeks before you come back. This time might be the last time we see the gardeners before they come home and we forgot to get their garden done.
Over the next weeks as the grass grew to calf height and the dandelions reached for my knees we were on the look out for any gardener who might help. I work from home and would hear a lawn mower start up and race outside. Could I see them? Where were they? On my street or the block over? How much to mow the front yard only? It’s quite amazing how many lawn mowers you can hear in a week if you are listening and how quickly they tackle a yard and then move on. I did manage to catch one, but he asked for $60! Our guy is $45 for front and back. He was not the guy for me, but time was running out.
The next few days were filled with angst that grew as steadily as all those blades of grass. When are they coming home? What if they come home and see their house looking abandoned? What can I do? I have no lawn mower, no weed whacker, no garden tending tools. There is not much I can do about the plots and patches of grass, but the dandelions I can tackle.
Pulling out the garbage can and a shovel, I start to work grabbing and pulling, twisting and shoveling the soil under the weeds and dandelions, loosening them from their grip on the neighbors front yard. In a few short minutes I have a thin sheen of sweat across my forehead, dirt under my nails and a pile of fallen dandelions at my feet. A few armfuls of leaves and stems are tossed into the garbage bin and a few passes of the push broom puts the dust and dirt back where it belongs.
In less than 20 minutes I have done all that I can. It’s not much, but it looks better and I make my peace and decide I will explain the rest when they return. The garbage can is rolled back to it’s position, the broom and shovel returned to the garage, and I go back to my desk no longer listening for lawn mowers.
The grass and dandelions situation had been discussed quite a bit within the family as the weeks grew longer and the weeds grew taller. My kids knew to be on the look out for any gardener or lawn mower for hire. My daughter spotting one driving down the street only to be gone by the time I got outside. Needless to say, I was excited to share my contribution when she got home from school just an hour or so later.
“Did you see?” I asked as soon as she walked in.
“See what?” she replied, looking around at Amazon packages and mail on the table.
“The weeds next door? They are gone.”
“You found a gardener?”
“Nope, I am the gardener, I pulled them myself. Come on I’ll show you.” I said, pulling her out the front door.
We walked down the front path to the sidewalk, towards our SUV in the driveway and our neighbors yard. Just a few more steps and we can see their lawn from behind our car.
“Wow, good job, Mom. Looks good” she says. However, I have stopped short. The yard I left covered in foot high grass had been cut. The whole thing, from the strip on the sidewalk to the hedges under their bay window. It is obvious this was not a professional. The area around the light pole and near the edges are not crisp enough, but someone definitely cut this grass.
I explain to my girl that I did not do this. Someone else must’ve come after me. Perhaps one of the other neighbors saw me pitching in and thought they could do the same? I will never know. Yet, it occurs to me, maybe I did do this. Not with intention or expectation but because doing good might be contagious. Helping others might be spreadable. Maybe we can be the change we wish to see. I marveled about it all day and into the next. Someone came and cut the grass.
Processing this one took time. Not because I was trying to figure out ‘who dunnit’ but because I wanted to understand why I did it. What was with those days of anxious worry and my need to “fix” the situation. It dawned on me, that question is one that comes up for me a lot. What can I do? How can I help? How can I fix it? Those questions are the chorus to the endless song of hyper-vigilance that plays in my head.
I am constantly looking for ways to take care of anyone around me, even at times to my own detriment, because that is how I learned to keep myself safe as a child. Read the room, beware of angry faces, soothe others so they don’t attack you. Keep everyone else happy at all costs. It is strange how these things stay with us, how they morph into people pleasing and over-extending ourselves. How we put pressure on ourselves for things that are out of our control and perhaps not even our responsibility. How we fear anger or disappointment from anyone and everyone, yet discount or disregard our own anger and disappointment. How we get so good at taking care of others gardens, and so bad at tending to ourselves.
For much of my life I was unaware of this tendency in myself or where it came from. I was taught to be helpful but not taught to protect myself. I was taught to be giving to others but the idea of giving to myself was selfish. I poured myself out over and over and then collapsed internally when no one seemed interested or available to pour into me.
Over the past few years I have begun to understand the ways the past manifests in the present, I have begun to be discerning in who I pour myself out for. I am learning how to take care of myself to better take care of those I choose to take care of. Instead of exhausting myself on everyone. I am beginning to understand that the more I do this, the more I will be at peace, the more I will find acceptance, the more I will heal.
To whomever cut the grass, thank you. Thank you for restoring my hope a bit. Thank you for showing me that I am seen, that people do care, that others are watching and want to help. Thank you for healing a small piece of the little girl inside me who feels like she has given and given and not ever had someone else come and cut the grass. You’ve made a believer out of me. I just hope you’re caught on their Ring, I’d like to thank you in person.
