BitterSweetLife

I figured it would be a good idea to start my first "mowing" post on a high number, like a new check book, to give it a feeling of integrity. Also, I could have easily written 36 previous mowing posts if I'd wanted to, given how I spend my daylight hours--but I spared you. Rather than questioning my title, you should be thanking me.

A couple years ago, Kansas City had a ridiculously cool and gentle summer. I kept finding myself looking around for glaciers or mountains in the distance, that's how good if felt to be outside. Because I wasn't sweating a gallon an hour or combating heat exhaustion, I found myself constantly jotting down post ideas or short poems between mowing jobs. The extra energy bubbled over in creativity. It was idyllic.

It will never happen again.

In 2006 and 2007 I mostly walked around dripping wet trying to avoid thinking original thoughts, because they wouldn't be the kind I wanted to share with the world. I stopped carrying a notebook in the cab of the company truck and developed a love for emo. And then, yesterday, creativity struck. Maybe it was the slight drop in humidity, maybe it was the 44-ounce Gatorade, maybe it was just inexplicable grace--but I found myself ransacking the truck for a pen, flattening out a Wendy's napkin, and scribbling down several paragraphs of pure inspiration. Since the napkin was soggy with sweat by the time I finished, I spread it carefully on the seat to dry. Then I left for lunch.

I came back. I looked around the interior of the truck. I looked in the bed. And under the seat.

"Hey Johnny," I said to my brother, "did you throw out a napkin?"
"Umm, yeah, I think I did."
"Did it have writing all over it?"

The truck is rarely cleaned out. Wait, that's an understatement. Cleaning is something the truck waits for expectantly like Christmas. Or leap year.

"I guess you threw it out," I said. "That's too bad."
"I'm sorry. I mistook it for another napkin."

Fortunately, the story ends well. After a lawn spent retracing my mental footprints, I was able to reconstitute my words on another napkin--something that doesn't always happen, whether you're writing in MS Word in your apartment or in a pickup in 100 degree weather.

"Watch closely," I said. "I'm putting this napkin up on the dash, in case another cleaning frenzy comes over you. It's the one with writing all over it."

And so the napkin survived, and was placed carefully in my backpack, and carried home. In the next week or so, some of that recaptured brilliance will no doubt make its way here--if it doesn't get thrown out by my wife.