CUTTING GRASS

I took a job cutting grass one summer because I was addicted to the smell of cut grass and thought the idea of sniffing grass all summer and getting paid would be exhilarating. Of course, the reality was more work than not and the moments of basking in that beautiful fragrance were few and far between.
I’m not sure I recognized at the time that what compelled me about that smell was my deep-rooted memories of baseball.

Years later as my wife and I and our young kids began taking summer trips I would find myself in some town wondering around in the early morning after a workout, maybe it was a western town like Redding or Ashland, or on the East Coast in a place like South Orange, New Jersey and I would find my way to the local baseball field to stretch and look for something. Sun, grass, dirt, memory, hope, redemption. All these seemed inherent on any field wherever I was and if I stood there long enough, they would find me and fill me with direction.

Baseball is a funny game. Simple really, but also infinitely complex. Not just because in any given moment a seemingly endless set of nuanced outcomes can appear out of nowhere but also because every game consists of a multitude of stories, sometimes personal and sometimes larger, that play out before you. Out of any game there always seems to be a few people, players or crowd, that walk away with a sense of purpose or pride, or maybe, heartbreak, and a deeper sense of an opportunity lost.

At least for that day.

If you have the chance sometime, go and sit by a baseball field. Any field where games have been played. If there is no one there you just need to sit and listen. There are echoes there of all the games played on that field. The whoops of joy and curses of disgust. The fights that broke out or the cheers that went up. It’s all still happening.

Or, if a game is in action, watch the players on the field for signs of happiness. The sheer pleasure of being together engaged in the moment before, on a field of green and brown, the crack of the bat, the thwap of the ball hitting leather, the yelling of instruction to each other, the sound of teammates pulling for one another or the highly skilled trash talking that inevitably takes place. As if this moment, this here and now, were something really important.

As if it meant everything.