‘Getting away from it all” could mean a weekend religious retreat. Or maybe an afternoon sitting in a dark movie theater, enjoying repeated showings of “Catwoman.” Perhaps even just a morning on a park bench with a 32-ounce bottle of Colt 45.
Or it could be an hour behind your Lawn Boy.
There are people–a lot of people, apparently–who find the lawn-mowing experience as refreshing as a week at a lakefront cottage in the Dells. It’s an opportunity, they say, to get their mental houses in order.
“I like cutting grass, I do,” said Shirley Gregory, who’d better, considering she has nine acres in Wilmington in Will County.
Whether she’s riding a mower or walking behind one–she has both types–Gregory uses her mowing time to clear her mind.
“I think about a lot of things,” she said. “And it relaxes me. I kind of get away from the everyday problems.”
She is not alone.
“My mind wanders about a lot of things,” said Anthony Gargiulo Jr. of Oak Park, owner of a large back yard and an electric self-mulching Black & Decker mower. “There’s not enough value put on that these days, to have that sort of time to just free up and not think of anything in particular. I think about things I might write about–I do some freelance writing–and I also might think about problems I’m having, whether it’s work or family problems.”
David Brot of Buffalo Grove lets his thoughts meander too.
No. 1 thing I think about is work,” is in advertising for Leo Burnett. stuff it’s late in the year and it’s fantasy football season, I’ll definitely think about that, because amount of strategic thought, which I don’t get a chance to do when are we going to do this, what are we going to pay for–the big-picture stuff I cover when I’m out there.”
With about a half-acre to mow, Carol Eneix of far southwest suburban Channahon has plenty of time for deep thinking.
“I plan out everything,” she said. “I can plan out the whole week when I’m cutting grass. Or figure out problems. Honestly, it’s nice because there’s nobody to bother you, there’re no phones ringing, everything’s zoned out. All I do is concentrate on what is on my mind at that time. It’s a good stress reliever.”
The mental health benefits of cutting your grass also include instant gratification. And to some, maybe even a feeling of superiority.
“The quality of mowing things down,” said Phil K. Kasik, owner of Kago, a garden center and landscaping business in Brookfield, “you feel power.”
Kasik has his workers do most of his grass, but he keeps a mower at home so he can do part of his Western Springs lawn himself.
“It’s a charge. I enjoy doing it,” he said. “It’s a feeling inside where I can express myself.”
What Gregory, Gargiulo, Brot, Eneix and Kasik probably don’t realize is they’re enjoying a psychological experience known as “flow.” A theory developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a former professor at Lake Forest College and the University of Chicago, flow is similar to what an athlete experiences when he or she is in “the zone,” a combination of deep concentration and effortless action.
“It’s a slightly altered state of mind,” said Lake Forest psychology professor Kathryn Dohrmann. “It’s one of those situations where you lose track of time, and your ordinary consciousness disappears, and you’re completely involved in what you’re doing.”
Certain circumstances dictate when flow occurs, according to Dohrmann, herself a lawn-mowing enthusiast.
“The first one is that there’s a clear set of goals,” she said. “And when you think about mowing your lawn, you know what you want to do. . . . The second is you get immediate feedback on what you’re doing. To me that’s really true in mowing a lawn. You can see where you’ve been, where you haven’t and what you’ve missed. The third thing is that the flow experience has a balance between the challenge of the experience and the skills you have. If it’s too easy you’re going to get bored; and if it’s too hard you’re going to get frustrated. But if it’s just about the right level of challenge for your skills, then it works.”
Experiencing flow almost has the feel of meditation. And cutting your grass could actually be a form of meditation, according to Christopher Baxter, an instructor at Universal Spirit Yoga in Naperville.
He said that if a person isn’t using lawn mowing to avoid dealing with problems and is cutting the grass purely out of pleasure and enjoyment, it could take on a meditative quality. The drone of the mower and the smell of the fresh-cut grass are contributing factors.
“This is all very sensory to the body,” he said, “and when you’re dealing with smells and sounds that are just filling up the mind and body, it creates kind of a euphoric-like state.”
Gargiulo knows. He goes there often.
“I think it goes back to when I was a kid,” he said. “Something attracted me to that. It was just the whole–I like being in a garden, I like being in a back yard. I find it therapeutic. It frees up my mind a little bit. It takes me away from things. And I can accomplish something in the meantime. So it’s utilitarian as well.”
And when summer’s over and the mower is stored away … well, there will be leaves to rake and snow to shovel.
Poetry in mowing
One evening after working on her lawn, Lake Forest College professor Kathryn Dohrmann wrote a poem about it. She called it “Mower Better Blues.”
How can you mow in the dark?
she asks as I take her call,
wet grass dripping
from my shoes. Cutting at night,
I say, is like conversation:
the mower stutters
where going is thick;
when blades sing you know
you’ve been there. You can listen
to fresh cuts flurry.
Patience, letting it lead,
asking shadows
for what you’ve missed.
Lawns forgive quickly–
the morning brings second chances.
Make the most of time behind a lawn mower
With a little concentration, a person can turn that lawn-mowing job into a form of meditation, according to Christopher Baxter, an instructor with Universal Spirit Yoga in Naperville.
He suggests mowing early in the day when your thoughts are clearer.
Then, observe. How fast or how slow are you walking? How do you hold your body as you mow?
“Just these little observations are keeping you pretty much in your body, and that’s definitely a meditative quality,” Baxter said.
Breath awareness is even more important than observation, he said.
“Are you breathing shallow? Did the last two lines you just mowed, was that shallow breathing? Or were you taking nice, full breaths?”
Another step, he said, is attitude. Don’t consider the mowing as an escape; see it as an opportunity to do a good job.
Put all the steps together, and you’re approaching a meditative state.
“Observing the body, the breathing and the attitude, that’s like the physical, the action and the mental quality, those three interacting,” Baxter said. “That’s a very meditative quality.”
–William Hageman
