Sitting around watching the grass grow is an expression for having nothing to do.
Unless you live in Florida, where you can literally watch this occur. Especially if it rains, where, like one of those time-lapse videos of flowers blooming, blades of the front lawn shoot forth before your eyes.
I know. Because I had to cut the grass every few days year-round while growing up in the peninsula’s southern region. It started when I was 10, and was no easy task with a big backyard and heat and humidity that, like an MMA fighter, tried to see how quickly it could beat you into submission.
I remember my dad often coming inside after yardwork, cranking the ceiling fan on high and crashing on the floor exhausted, just lying there for an hour. Granted, he always mowed in pants for some reason, which probably didn’t help, but even if he’d done it in the buff—and being Florida, I am certain this occurs—it would’ve still wiped him out. My taking over those duties was most welcomed.
I don’t know if I was quite ready for that first mow because of all the little mohawks I created in the yard where I’d missed at taking even swipes of the ankle-high growth. But I do know this: I’d actually asked my dad if I could take on the job.
I’d been inspired by friends who were mowing their own yards, and wanted to keep pace with those bragging rights. Looking back, I think this must’ve been a conspiracy among the neighborhood dads, plotting to kick back on Sunday afternoons and watch Miami Dolphins games instead of sweating their tails off.
But now, as I watch my own son push the mower across my growing grass, I realize it’s a different stimulant behind the request.
He actually asked me at age nine if he could mow the lawn, too. At no prompting of my own. In fact, he begged to do it. It certainly wasn’t a plan by me so I could watch the Dolphins play instead—yardwork’s often an easier task than that.
The truth was he had approached that age where boyhood was gathering among those clippings behind him as he pushed the mower into the manhood of tall Bermuda waiting to be scalped. It was a desire inside blossoming to do something more adultlike.
I was proud of him taking on our own Green Monster, and I have to say he did a pretty good job. Since then, he’s had plenty of opportunities to realize how quickly the grass comes back—whether you’re watching it or not. Growth just suddenly appears one day and you realize it’s in need of mowing.
With bittersweetness, I can say the same thing about my sons. The sudden growth, that is—not the need to run them over with a mower (although, I’m certain a Florida Man somewhere has done this). The youngest is now driving. We just dropped the oldest off at college. This didn't occur overnight, but it sure feels like it, even though I was watching that growth right before my own eyes, every day.
I guess I’ll be back to mowing my own yard soon.
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