The Perfect Lawn

She stood quietly at the window and gave me a look that was neither sorrow, pity nor anger. Somehow, it contained all these messages and one more. My life had become a mess again. The tangles of time, people, business, alcohol, madness.

For years I had struggled against myself, kept myself heavily secured in emotional chains, mental bondage, a slave to others. I had worked very hard against all odds to remain a failure and had failed even that test. Accidental success had only deepened my misery. There are no chains wrapped tighter than those forged by easy success.

She took the glass I offered her and sat down across from me.

"What was your first job?"

"You mean as an adult?"

"No. Your first job."

I thought for a moment.

"My dad was a gardener. When I was eleven he made me work with him Wednesday, Thursday and Friday all summer mowing peoples lawns."

Not a single friend of mine missed a single moment of his summer that year, I recalled with an acuity not diminished one bit by the passage of some forty five years.

"Was your father the best gardener?"

"Not really. He did a lot of qauntity over quality I would say. We hustled."

"Did you know this at the time, that there was a better way?"

"Well, sort of...the wealthy people always hired the nisei gardeners to tend their landscaping. The Japanese Americans were the best gardeners."

I remembered a schoolboy crush I had on the daughter of one of the nisei gardeners who lived in our town. She never returned my valentines card the year I worked up the nerve to present her with one. She never spoke to me or looked me in the eye at all, that day or any other.

"You have a lot of lawn. What is your favorite part?"

"The side yard by the patio."

"Yes, its lovely. You must make it perfect."

I looked at her.

"Do you know what is meant when I say "perfect?"

I looked at her.

"Go work on your lawn until it is perfect."

I continued to look at her, not comprehending.

"You will know when it is...and when it is not. "Perfect" isn't a picture in a design magazine, no matter how beautiful. It cannot be found in anyone elses's yard.

The perfection I am talking about cannot be attained outside the place you inhabit. It cannot exist for anyone but you. The award winning lawn of your neighbor can never be your perfection."

I looked at her.

"You will find perfection only as a feeling which arises within you. You must make yourself open and available to it. Otherwise, there is no path."

I looked at her.

"The goal of your life is to maintain your perfect lawn each day. As you do so and it becomes a routine habit, the feeling will transform into an attitude, an attitude which you may then bring into other parts of your life."

I looked at her.

"An attitude which you can only build one perfection at a time."

She rose and walked out the french door to the patio, then stepped back across the threshold.

"Its a big yard and there is still some sunlight..."

She left quietly without saying goodbye. I stared at the open door for a moment, felt a sudden heaviness pass through my body, then got up and went outside.