DeeKnow’s Grotto

As a kid I earned most of my pocket money mowing the local primary school lawns each weekend. Nowadays people would consider this child-slavery but as a teen-ager I was thrilled and amazed to be paid the princely sum of $9.50 for two or three hours work on a Sunday cutting grass.

The mower was a big Briggs-and-Stratton powered self propelled jobbie which I'd fill with gas, start eventually, and proceed to follow round the school grounds in ever decreasing circles. It was a great job and after an hour or so you'd find yourself in a zen-like state, blissfuly if noisely, wandering up and down, round and round, backwards and forwards, concentrating and at the same time not concentrating on what was going on as you consumed endless metres of uncut lawn.

As bizarre as it sounds, chasing the noisy smelly oily shaking mulching monstrosity was actually a very peaceful activity.

As I've gotten older I've discovered many similar mindless pursuits that have that same magic alpha-state kinda quality. Hanging out the washing is one of them, with the added pleasure of harnessing natures great power to dry the clothes. Vacumning is another with lawn-mowing like characteristics, ie following lines and patterns, consuming an area of carpet in a time and energy efficient means as possible.

The ultimate activity I think would have to be driving a combine harvester, or maybe plouging a massive field in a tractor. But for me, I think I'd settle for a nice full time job mowing lawns. Not a sit-down one mind, dont wanna put on too much weight, just give me onea those self propelled numbers a good pair of boots and a pair of sunnies and I'll be as happy as Larry.

12:00:57 AM