gozzterLeave a Comment on Hay nonny, nonny

Hay nonny, nonny

I tripped over a rock in the grass today; I’d like to think it had nothing to do with my age; nothing to do with balance issues; and certainly nothing to do with any temporary malfeasance of my heart. In fact, I suspect that it was related to a loss of control of a different kind: I’ve lost control of my lawn. Well, okay, it’s not really a lawn that I was trying to cross, but the pasture behind my house.

It used to be one of my more well-behaved fields in the days when I raised sheep and llamas: they grazed it and fertilized it like they were born for the job. After I retired and sold the animals, though, it occurred to me that the field was just staring at me waiting for instructions.

Can I blame the grass? There was a time when it had to grow like blazes just to keep up with the hungry mouths feeding on it, fertilizing it, moulding it into stubble against its will. Now it has the look of an unshaven hermit who, as seen from an occasional glance out of the window, is content to let his face and the field lie fallow.

The field used to host a more or less unorganized collection of odd-sized rocks which, when I was younger, I’d gathered and organized to form a clumpy road on the lee-side of a little hill for my truck. Admittedly they would not have passed any Canadian engineering highway standards, and they probably stayed in place only because my tires pounded them earthwards when I drove hay bales to the barn for winter storage.

The rocks and the road have long since lost their purpose, however, and over the years with no meaningful work, a goodly number of them have decided to head off to seek their fortune elsewhere. A rock rolling on its own is unlikely to get very far, I suppose, so most of them settled somewhere close by in the grass, gathering moss and sheltering worms and those creepy beetle-things I’ve never been able to touch.

The pasture, I should explain, is now growing like a field of unharvested wheat and from my porch seems easily waist height in places. Past attempts to tame it blunted and chipped the blade of a scythe I am no longer allowed to borrow from a friend; shortly thereafter, it destroyed the little plastic wack-string of a Weed-Wacker I bought on sale at a Canadian Tire store. Last year, before I was able to wade very far into it for some reason that escapes me now, I noticed several ticks attempting to scale my bare legs after I tripped on a rotting fence post I must have left out there. It was too hot to wear long pants so I abandoned the ill-considered sortie; the field is now a no-go area to be reckoned with. The place where beauty once dwelled, now lurks threateningly near my back door, just daring me to launch another foray.

But, much like scattered hidden IEDs, the moss-camouflaged rocks wreak havoc far beyond the occasional forgotten fence pole. Unexpected and powerful, they live for excitement like unemployed teenagers gone bad. From a sociological perspective, no doubt there are multiple causes, but neglect seems paramount; I have whispered many a mea culpa from my seat on the porch, even though I am not Catholic, and would probably be awarded an increased penance for using the wrong words.

But, it also occurred to me that the rock which IEDed me may also have been exacting some long hoped-for retributive justice. Alone and now unemployed, it may have felt it had no option but to punish me for retiring the scrabbly road for which it had once been hired. Heaven only knows how often an unwary foot happens by to use it like in the old days; with the exception of deer, the animals who were genetically programmed to watch where they stepped are now only a memory.

I suppose there was some satisfaction for the road gang in my fall from grace though -the boss laid low after his road had laid them off- but for the lonely rock, I hope it was more of an accident than an attack: a fortuity, as it were. Except for my pride, I wasn’t injured, and the rock got a free trip back to its abandoned home, so I assume the score is settled for now… Unless, after all these years, it had been living the life of Riley in gay abandon, happy it had escaped, no longer troubled by a neighbour’s elbows or sharp unfriendly conduct in a rough-and-tumble neighbourhood.

In some strange way, the rock’s escape reminded me of Hamlet’s conundrum with existence: ‘Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.’ I mean, why should a rock stay in overcrowded conditions when an empty field lies beckoning just beyond? A place where rough edges do not scrape against others, and there’s not a constant struggle to breathe fresher air on top. There’s no pressure to adapt when you’re in a field; no worry there, if He who made the Lamb made thee (sorry Blake)…

In many ways, I regret carrying it back -tossing it, really- into foster care again. Was I, as well as the rock, guilty of vengeance -or was my response more of a crime of indignation? Merely a boss-employee interaction? Was I not accorded sufficient respect, having been targeted by a nameless rock, from a now defunct road I had struggled to build so long ago? It’s hard to know how to come down on this one.

Maybe, in cosmic terms, I deserved it -maybe I was due for a comeuppance, a reckoning. After all, I had let the field lie fallow for too long, not the rock. Like a snake hiding in long grass, the ordinarily passive rock was merely defending itself. If our roles had been reversed, I would no doubt have done the same if I had been granted agency in the matter. My only agency as it happened, was the decision to wade through an untamed field with insufficient reason.

Or maybe it was all just bad luck, eh? I mean bad things happen to good people. I have no idea why I feel I have to defend the rock…

, , , , ,

Leave a comment

search previous next tag category expand menu location phone mail time cart zoom edit close