Last week a loud unexpected knock on the door revealed a weary man in a worn green uniform from the Department of something—Parks, Traffic, Public Works—that I didn’t quite catch because I was too busy trying to determine what kind of new scam this was. Except it wasn’t. Someone had complained about the ivy encroaching on the sidewalk, the over-arching hedges and the low-hanging branches of the hawthorn tree.
“I’m supposed to write you a summons,” he said, “but consider this a warning.” It went on for quite a while, his scolding account of my legal responsibilities, ending with the caveat that he’d return in a few days, and if I hadn’t cleared the sidewalk and overhang, he’d have no choice.
I’d been meaning to trim things back, had planned, once the weather cooled, to clean it all up a few paper yard waste bags at a time. Maybe six hours’ worth of work overall, I thought, not including cutting down and chopping up several large branches (and the huge pile of them sitting by the garage from last year). Still doable, I thought. But when I went out and began snipping ivy, I was soon sweating, mosquito bitten, and overwhelmed—this was hardly a one-person job.
Forget the backstory of my sharing—and trying to preserve—my mom’s taste for a more natural than manicured look. Of my fights with JR, the car service driver/handyman/friend who’d been helping her for years. I knew he needed the work, but he always cut back more than I asked for. Forget his having gone home to Columbia for a few weeks that have turned into months with no promise of his return, and that I kind of enjoyed wielding the leaf blower I’d bought in his absence. Last fall I managed somehow, but after a year’s worth of growth I could not, and the leaves were just beginning to come down.
Screw the neighbors, was what I’d always said to JR, but I was only screwing myself. Inside the yard, I could keep things as wild as I pleased. But the sidewalks were a mess—an injury lawsuit waiting to happen. My mom can no longer see as far as the yard, let alone the perimeter, or the disgusting trash and broken appliances people so freely dump in the overgrown ivy, as though no one lives here.
Why did it matter so much to take care of this myself? To keep buying wild grasses, clovers, and other seed mixes that claimed they could survive the so-called “hell strip,” but yielded only rangy weeds? What was I holding onto? Nothing of any real worth—just a burden I could no longer carry. And the owners of the preschool across the street were more than happy to give me the number of the company that tends their tidy child-friendly lawn.
It took four guys an hour and a half to make my sidewalks as clear as any of the other properties in my neighborhood that aren’t abandoned. I thought I’d feel sad, but all I feel is relief. And on Monday mornings when, for an unbelievably reasonable monthly rate, the company will send back a couple of guys with leaf blowers and other tools to keep my sidewalks clear, all I’ll be thinking to that busybody who ratted me out is, So there.
As a pretty tidy gardener who raises eyebrows at overgrown front yards it’s enlightening to hear the flip side.
Forgot about this song! Thanks reminding me of it. <3