Pick Up Sticks

What's the point, anyway?

The other morning, when we finally had a few cool, breezy hours, I went outside to pick up all the sticks, which had come down during a couple of severe thunderstorms.

I noticed, recently, that we notice the weather a lot more now: two weeks without rain, for example. I can tell you when the last time it rained was. My wife and I thought it was just a really dry couple of summers. But these are the two summers we’ve owned a house and had a garden or a yard. It occurred to me that in a condo or apartment, which we’ve lived in previously, the weather doesn’t particularly matter. Who cares if the property’s plants are a little wilted? Who even notices, really?

Owning a house with even a little bit of land forces you to be aware of these things. There’s an element of competition—we don’t want to be the only house with a yellowed lawn. I’m not sure what I think about it.

I’ve played with this question a lot here—do the responsibilities of homeownership overlap with and reinforce your responsibilities as a spouse, parent, citizen—or do they interfere with them? Are these the same sorts of virtues taking different forms, or is “useless” work like mowing the grass and picking up the sticks after a storm truly useless? Does it grow your capacity to do—to take care of, to steward, to husband—or does it drain it?

I saw a Twitter exchange recently where someone said something like, “Lawns are stupid and yardwork is a waste of time,” and someone replied something like, “Sure, but your capacity to mow a lawn every week and keep a property tidy is a very good proxy for your general ability to be a productive citizen.”

Is that true? Maybe I’m overthinking it, but what I hear that reply saying is something like (sorry for all the “something likes”): the work that suburban life entails is useless in and of itself, but it’s a (very laborious, roundabout) way of making people demonstrate a general sense of adult responsibility. You hear the same thing with cars and driving, sometimes: that car ownership is important because of what it demonstrates, not because of what it actually does or is.

So my thought in response is, aren’t there other possible ways to be a good neighbor/good citizen/good adult that are less costly and time consuming?