It wasn’t me, honestly!
Yesterday, late in the afternoon, there was quite a bit of noise outside. One of the neighbors was driving around the house on a motorized lawnmower, mowing the sparse grass and the even more sparse wildflowers. And possibly rhubarb, seeing how I found a couple huge rhubarb leaves hanging low in the nearby tree today. The big crystal stone that stood on the old tree stump outside was knocked down, and even the bench by the outdoors table was dragged a bit away, though I am not sure whether that was done with the lawnmower or by hand.
It was pretty surreal. I had no idea whether to thank them or scold them. And then it became even more surreal, as I heard the sound of small children playing noisily outside. Â It was as if two timestreams were about to merge: Inside the house, the one where I lived here, and outside, a slightly different cosmos without me. Â It was, to be honest, a little creepy. Â As a FaceBook friend quite reasonably commented: Sounds like you are a ghost, do you remember dying lately?
Not more than usual. Â And the place is quite nicely mowed, I give them that. Whose rhubarb it was, I may never know. I have a feeling that I saw such a plant here at some point in time, but I won’t swear it. Â Perhaps the kids brought it with them from somewhere else. Â I may have seen it passing the neighbors.
More generally, there probably is some kind of right of passage, as it were, on this property. Even though I have not lived that far from other houses since I left home at the age of 15, there are people passing right beside the house on a weekly basis if not more. Â Some walk by the study and living room window, others by the kitchen window. Â It is not as insane as it sounds, because the house is near the riverbank, and this is the easiest place to get to it. The river is large enough that small personal boats can go up it from the sea, and there is a landing not too far from the house. Still, I am surprised by how popular it is. Well, if that means free lawnmowing, I am not really complaining. Just really, really surprised.