Moving, what a concept.

I don’t know, I just felt like saying it. I’ve moved, we’ve moved, all that. We’re pretty much done, although it won’t feel that way for a while. There’s always something to do. There was before, but there’s a lot more things to do with. For instance, we have a yard. Not just any yard, it’s not all grass.

I despise grass. Too much is a sign of garbage. I learned the origins of the grass lawn last year and it blew my mind, which makes total sense now. It holds its’ origins in an ultimate sign of homeowner wealth. Lawns are not easy to maintain, especially in the 19th century. It showed that those residents had the time, money, and land to just have… a patch of useless grass on their land, instead of plants or a garden. An all-out strut of economic wellbeing to the rest of the town. You get where this is going.

Where we moved from, we had no lawn, to my delight. We had a small patch of mulch out front where a tree was growing, which we did not have to maintain. Now, we have a yard out back, but most of the land is fern, wooded overgrowth beyond that. There’s a patch out front too, but it splits halfway toward the street, trees, overgrowth, fern, pine seedlings rising among their taller siblings. The parts that are “lawn” itself, if you can call it that, are a mix of clover, Japanese Pachysandra, and a mix of flowers and trees. It’s ground cover. Needing little maintenance, keeping low to the ground, and much better than grass.

We moved in on a Thursday, spent all week moving, unpacking, painting etc, and it poured out most of it. It’s pouring out now. After what I have guessed to be two weeks of growth, inches of rain, and no maintenance, I finally pulled the new lawn mower out to give it a test run. It’s electric, which was fun. The “lawn,” hardly needed a cut, even after all that rain. We have an insane, unreasonable obsession with lawns, especially in suburban America.

We took a walk yesterday, there’s a few “cul de sacs” or whatever you’d like them to be called. We walked down, and there’s a sign out front, “Welcome to Ian’s Way.” Already, it’s a weird thing upon entering. I’m sure you’ve seen the type of “neighborhood” among your travels. It already gives a sense of unwelcoming ambiance, if you’re not the right color. Some asshole developer cleared the land, and I mean all the land, and build twenty or so homes, thankfully not all quite alike, but enough alike, and their sprawling lawns are all insanely, and creepily immaculate. Mowed to the bone, green as can be, not a weed on them.

Who has this time, the money? Jesus. It feels like the type of place that’d call the cops if I parked outside one of the houses. Little to no tree cover or shade anywhere. No wildlife, no natural vegetation. Each house is surrounded by yards and yards of open land. No fencing or cover between houses. It just felt unnatural.

I like my ground cover, vegetation, wild turkeys in the yard (the other day) the occasional bear scare, (to come so I hear) or mice, chipmunks, squirrels, birds of all kinds. We need to accept that we live in fucking New England, not some fairytale, picturesque perfect version of your suburban wet dream. That neighborhood? “Ian’s Way” could have been anywhere. It’s a total sham, a disappointment. Any developer could’ve carved that massive space out (all those fucking trees) and made that place anywhere, any time. It just happens to be here. But it’s spitting in the face of anywhere they are. They have the luxury of not dealing with anything that makes their town, city, village, street, state, that place. Why live here if you’re going to strip the originality out of it?

This house was throwing a party, kids in the yard NEXT to the house playing baseball, a pool party ensuing, a massive black, clear fence surrounding the back of the property. Why? Jesus Christ. I threw a ball back that landed in the street. Those kids don’t know yet, but they will soon enough, conditioned no doubt into thinking they have to be beholden to their yards, a false sense of neighborly duty to spend grueling summers out on the lawn.

Fuck your vast expanses of manicured lawn, I’ll take my clover any day of the week. Have fun starting your ride on each year.