“If a man settles in a certain place and does not bring forth the fruit of that place, the place itself casts him out, as one who has not borne its fruit.”
–Anonymous 4th-century desert father
I’ve come to love Tucson and its somewhat extreme weather.
When it’s not either baking (June, July, August and September) or freezing (December, January and February), the wind blows.
Because the front yard, the back yard, the side cabana and the sidewalk median in front of my house are planted with old-growth mesquite trees, this means that I spend much of my life sweeping. In fall, the tiny oval leaves fall off: bushels accumulate. In spring, the catkins drop: bushels.
Sweeping and raking. Sweeping the front walkway, sweeping the sidewalk, sweeping the front patio, sweeping the back patio, sweeping the hallway because with all that sweeping, raking, and hauling to the trash, I also endlessly track minuscule bits of plant material all through the house.
No matter how much I sweep, every few months, two to three inches of tree detritus accumulates. The back yard has a kind of patio area of old brick, each of which has three holes in it that act as magnets for the maddening debris. BRISK sweeping is required there! I’ve tried vacuuming. I’ve tried hosing. Neither method works very well and both use natural resources I’d just as soon conserve.
I guess most people use leafblowers but a leafblower to me is a manifestation of the anti-Christ. I would never, ever impose such barbaric demonic noise on another human being (unless I were a yard maintenance guy at which point my sensibilities would no doubt undergo rapid alteration). I’m surrounded by neighbors on all sides who think nothing of imposing it on me, but all rhe more reason to refrain myself.
I’m a renter and a species of yard guy comes with the place but to his and my landlady’s everlasting credit, they eschew leafblowers, too, and the tree debris removal in any event falls to me.
I don’t really mind except that this year the trees have been raining down their sloughed-off waste at such an unrelenting clip that I actually starting having anxiety dreams, as in will the task overtake me; come to dominate my life?
DID I MENTION I HAVE HAY FEVER?
Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about an artist whose obit I’d read a couple of years ago: Daniel Brush, a NYC jeweler/sculptor I will write more fully about at another time but who lived in a giant former sewing factory loft and spent up to five hours a day sweeping. (He also ate the exact same thing ever day: a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast and a bowl of pea soup in the afternoon).
I thought of him especially yesterday morning as I had gotten out front early to begin the day’s portion of my Sisyphean task. (My street is a direct and popular route to the nearby park where half of Tucson apparenty walks their dogs so the sidewalk needs tidying up every day even under the best of circumstances).
I’d decided to attend 5 pm Mass and I didn’t have anyplace to be till noon so I wasn’t rushed as I often am, or feel, when sweeping: trying to squeeze the task in so I can get to my desk. No, I took my time. The morning air was a caress. It was Sunday and people were sleeping in, so silence reigned.
And all of a sudden I realized how much I, too, LIKE sweeping. It’s only onerous when I think I should, or want to be, doing something else. It only seems like a Sisyphean task when I’m tired and in a hurry and thinking that the leaves and debris are my ENEMY.
I thought how lucky I am that I can even stand up straight, and walk, and bend down and that all that bending down to bag the stuff was actually good for my knees and back. I thought how lovely it was to clean leaves the old-school way, without the aid of a gasoline-powered device that fouled the birdsong and set my neighbors’ teeth on edge.
I took my time and after a while my mind started wandering to pleasant, interesting topics such as how to make a spicy peanut sauce, whether I should fly to NY for a week in August, and what to include in my upcoming talks on the Vocaton of the Artist.
The upshot was that I began wondering if I couldn’t work in a half-hour of sweeping as a kind of daily meditation, so that it would be something I look forward to instead of a pesky task. (I mean even now I kind of look forward to it but again, not if I’m trying to squeeze it in on my way to something else/better).
So that’s my little reflection on this day on which we remember all the fallen soldiers, and the family and friends they left behind.
I’m not sure if this short piece has a paywall, but it made me cry.
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