“Anyone know how to drive a riding mower?” came the question.
I looked around at the 30 college students gathered about. Oh, let the answer be, “no.” Let there be no one who knows how. Not because I was concerned about their safety.
I should say this (for legal reasons): I WAS concerned about their safety. Because I was their “site leader.” I had led this group of students on a Flagler College community service day out here to Another Chance Ranch. We were supposed to clean pens for goats and horses and dogs and other cast-off critters that these incredibly compassionate and wonderful people at this non-profit had taken in.
It all seemed like pretty harmless work. Throw some watermelon to the pigs. Play with a dog who needed constant attention. Walk the other dogs. Clean out some chicken coops. You know, farm stuff.
And then the mowing question came up — “… know how to drive a riding mower …” Safety wasn’t on my mind as I hoped they wouldn’t go for it. Rather, it was a much more selfish reason: I WANTED TO DO IT!
Mow a field?!? Are you kidding me! On a riding mower? That’s like the greatest thing ever. The tract of land stretched to the horizon. It must have been 1,000 acres. It would likely take a full week to do it, cover me head-to-toe in grass clippings and probably involve a cranky snake coiled up under the seat gnawing on my ankle.
It sounded great!
“Uh … I’ll give it a shot,” I said. “Fair warning: I’m dyslexic and barely know my right from my … what’s the other one? And once I fell out of a moving car with my seat belt on. But I think I’m perfect for this job!”
These all sounded like proper qualifications, and soon I was placed atop a little orange mower with a shaky steering wheel and sent off to carve wild, wavy lines in the grass while screaming, “Yahoo!”
But you quickly learn an important lesson while mowing a field roughly the size of Delaware: It is even MORE fun than it looks. Maybe it’s because the rules are so simple: 1) overlap the cut grass by a couple inches and 2) turn hard before you hit a fence or a tree. That’s it! Avoiding livestock, other people or your own ankles are all optional.
There’s no thinking involved, and it’s almost meditative. Cathartic. I fell asleep twice. I worked out deep philosophical questions like: What’s the meaning of life? And did I defrost chicken for dinner?
Most of all, I just breathed in fresh air (along with a lot of gas fumes) and escaped the “real” world. I didn’t get distracted by text messages or cars or people wanting this or that. It was just me, out in a field, mowing some grass. Free with my thoughts, unbound. Cut-off and off-the-grid. Staring at the natural world instead of the digital one. Talk about liberation.
When I finished up, the organization rep looked a little stunned: “You mowed the whole thing,” he said, kind of surprised.
“Mister, I would mow every weekend, as long as there’s fresh air and no digital screens,” I told him. “Plus, if we could do something about that critter gnawing on my ankle.”