One day last winter, my father and I pulled into my driveway after moving a refrigerator or a stove at one of his former duplexes in Pittsfield, and he took a look at my unshoveled, unsnowblown driveway and said, “You really should get rid of that ice.”
Why? Why should I waste an hour, probably two, of my life to chop ice?
Why should I sweep the sand off my driveway?
rake leaves, pick up grass clippings? To keep up with my neighbor? The one who’s probably out there every five minutes so he doesn’t have to be with his wife?
When I was a kid, my father would leave scribbled notes of chores for us to do every day of the summer. My brother was on his knees constantly, digging weeds out from under the bushes, and when the weeds got too out of control, we’d turn the ground over with the pitchfork.
We picked tomatoes we seldom ate, swept the pool so the dirt would filter out, shovelled dogshit constantly, scraped and mudded-up my arms and torso trying to roll up the 1600 feet of garden hose, so it made a nice coily pile on the patio — only to unfurl it again when my father spotted a deadspot on the lawn. All for what?
All of the chores taught me nothing — or it taught me to hate chores, and now my own home looks lived in, on, among. People who’ve driven past and seen my property tell me that I must have kids because the toys and stuff are scattered everywhere, like it’s a bad thing.
Morons.
Drive by my house and look closer: I don’t want to straighten my mailbox, seal my driveway, clean my garage, replace the small section of lattice under my house, trim the hedges, pick up the dead branches, straighten the tools in the basement, hose down the siding on the garage, paint the cedar shakes (I think they’re called ’shakes.’ It sounded like ’shakes.’) that covered the bathroom window a year ago, oh yeah: Sheetrock the bathroom, seal the tub…I don’t (didn’t) want to do any of that…
…and then my wife bought me a John Deere for Father’s Day:
Ah yes, the quiet rumbling of impending manhood. Don’t interpret this photograph as one that shows a man mowing a lawn gone all weedy and long. Look at it for its real meaning. I’m slicing away the err of my past negligence, mowing smooth my commitment to being the man my wife pines for: the one maybe like her grandfather Eldon Gilfillan, who was a beautiful blend of yardwork, philosophy, and naps — whose ‘to-do’ list at the moment of his untimely death still hangs proudly in my mother in-law’s basement. In the next life, I might approach being as good as he was.
Rest assured, I’m still the dainty little crybaby coffee snob while I’m riding it, and that’s what makes it all the sweeter. I look weird on it, because I can recite lines from Hamlet while I make precision cuts on the hills; can quote you Michel de Montaigne while I’m trimming around the bushes; and belabor the virtues of the perfect sentence while, with the deft push of a button and the soft touch of my right shoe, I execute the perfect reverse blade cut near that spot by the horse crossing sign at the front of my lawn.
I can’t tell you, though, how I’m going to fix my Starbucks dilemma. I put my grande Serena Organic in the trusty cup holder and went to work. I lost every drop of coffee after spending the first ten minutes of my first mow bouncing over the molehills that dot my lawn. I might have to hold the Starbucks while mowing, but that won’t solve the bouncing problem.
13 Comments
Are you implying that most men who enjoy yardwork are unable to quote from Hamlet?
I thought about it a little bit on the way home, and it struck me that I might be offending one of the seventeen people who read this. I guess I like to think I’m a dynamic person.
I can quote Hamlet AND I hate yardwork, so I guess I prove (?) the rule.
haha. that’s pretty great.
My exception was to the implication that a man who mows lawns or, gasp, might even take pride in proper lawn maintenance, would definitely never be a man a letters…well, boys, to thine own self be true, I guess.
You owe me a story…the one that your student wrote…don’t forget to send it. I’m looking forward to it.
I’m reading the road now…about 75 pages in with very mixed feelings. My new story’s done now. Wanna read it?
I sent you the story, and yeah, I want to read yours…That first draft was intense…can’t wait to read the next draft.
New draft has been sent
Both of those pictures should be framed and displayed in a prominent place in your home.
Just saying.
So I just went back and read some of your older entries - including the ones about your [mis]adventures with your agent(s) and your first stab at publishing your collection of short stories.
As someone who would like have her name on the spine of a book one day, I can empathize too well with the sorts of ups and downs you must have experienced with that. But, I guess I’m also someone who hasn’t done an MFA, and who has sort of just started this journey, and who hasn’t gotten enough rejections thrown in my face yet. And maybe, even if I’m a little thin-skinned, I’m a little too optimistic for my own good. I hear the stats, know the reality, hear it from the inside from people who work in the business, and it’s such a daunting task that the realist in me wonders why bother. But I have to believe that with the remaining decades in my life, I’ll be able to win that lottery if I keep buying a ticket every day left to me.
So, sob story it is, but luckily for you, you’re a good writer, and as someone once said to me, if you keep knocking, someone’s bound to answer the door.
Anyway, just wanted to drop my two cents to those entries since they were so interesting.
Btw, I may pose you a few questions here and there, as suggested by Vivian
well, i wanted to ask you, what’s your take on the fiction MFA degree? i’ve heard so many differing opinions on its worth, and i can’t figure out if i should bother even applying. so what was your experience like? pros and cons?
The MFA is a terminal degree, which means some colleges will accept it in lieu of a PhD. Some do the MFA for this purpose.
I did it because I thought it would teach me to be a better writer. It did in some ways, but I always have the feeling that my work was better before the MFA. The thing it definitely taught me was to be a closer reader and to rely on instinct and organics more as a writer rather then planning everything out before I wrote it.
The number one con was that the format of the MFA Program is not conducive to an organic writing process, ironically enough…A writer has to create X by a certain date, revise X by a certain date, and enlighten his teachers with XX in critical analysis by a certain date.
If I were to do it again, I’d make sure I applied to a full-residency program. I did a low-residency, which was a great experience in itself…I just think I would have gotten more out of a full residency at, say, Columbia. I think I’d be inspired by NYC…
Post a Comment