The greener grass.

It is a lazy Saturday in Stewartville. The cats trip about at our feet, making sure no calf goes uncozied in this house and no ear is without a symphony of meows. Both Mr. Husband and I sit up in the red library, door to the upper porch open as we drink our morning coffee. We’ve got various They Might Be Giants songs making us smile from Mr. Husband’s computer speakers. This is exactly where we want to be. Later today, our subdivision will erupt in super block party where we’ll all fall into the street in front of our house and all the other similarly shaped houses on Werewolf Lane. Did we prepare? You betcha! Last night, with a glass of red wine and my ever faithful kitty companion, Bonita, at my feet and trying ever to steal off the front porch, I kept up with the Joneses.

We live in an awesome neighborhood. Most houses are filled with vibrant young families that are full of smiles and cheer. There is a ladies group where we get together on the last Tuesday in the month to chat and sometimes learn something. Angelia, who is definitely one of the Joneses, taught us last month about how to put pots of flowers together for dramatic front porch effect. She went to several nurseries to find just the right plants to pile into a pot for super punch. I didn’t do such a good job—we went to one nursery. That simply had to do on short notice and with very little time (we never have enough time). I’ve got a serious thing for blooms. Those are flowers with flowers on them. Go figure. All my blooms will probably die in our full-on-sun front porch, but for today—for the block party—they are perky, perfect, and I am proud.

Mr. Husband and I used to make a concerted effort to get out and take advantage of what Birmingham has to offer. This meant that we’d visit the Botanical Gardens often, strolling about on her paths and visiting her different areas like the Japanese garden and the hothouse for free. FREE. We’d walk hand-in-hand and let conversation flow naturally about the trees, bushes, and flowers. Our daily lives are consumed by jobs that we love probably a little too much, so on the weekends—we try to live outside of work. It’s perhaps a little disturbing that we have to work to turn work off in our heads, but, then, this is what also helps to find ourselves at the Botanical Gardens or the zoo on the weekends. We are on an adventure from work.

One weekend, we went to the Botanical Garden to bathe in pensive thoughts as we tried sitting and being still and calm in various different spots in the garden. We’d enjoy one bench after another, one view after another. We finally found ourselves laying on a little bit of lawn just outside the Japanese garden. A perfect lawn with soft grass that was sprightly green and inviting. We splayed our body parts across the greeny-green surface, staring up into the cloud littered sky, saying to one another how perfect just now this moment is. We lay still. Quiet. Calm. And then the itching began. It was slow. It didn’t burn immediately, but the itching was like a nagging—like a little piece of thread hanging off the end of a blazer sleeve. Not really annoying but enough of a discomfort that it fills your thoughts every time you see it, “I should cut that off. Where are the scissors?”

We wiggled a little. Slight movement. Still staring at the sky. The itching grew and spread. Turning and repositioning didn’t restore the calm we had just three minutes ago. Oh, no! The grass! The grass is killing us! The grass is so perfect and beautiful and green and suspiciously stout and hearty because it is filled with fertilizers and God knows what else—the grass is attacking us! The grass! It’s filled with people—the grass didn’t want us there. We jumped up, itching and rubbing all exposed body parts. We leapt from the wonderful grass and found the brick path that is meant for humans. While we were laughing and glaring at the stupid grass that tried to kill us, we realized that there is most likely no calm for us. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can be content with the calm. We are alive and ready. Together, Mr. Husband and I are itching for a great big life. It’s coming. It is.