The Not Doing

Hydrangeas. Twilight.

This is my backyard, freshly mowed. The midsummer light falls in the early evening on the old hydrangeas, while I watch it ebb into the green every night I can.

I don’t mow this yard any more. It has joined the list of things I’ve given up: washing windows; playing tennis; living with someone; cleaning gutters; writing in cubicles; sleeping the whole night through; shoveling out the driveway; walking miles and miles in New York and Paris; making roast beef and Yorkshire pudding; cocktail parties; staying up late.

It’s a great luxury not to mow. I hear the roar of the landscaper’s monster machine and the mosquito-pitched whine of the weed-eater and in spite of the racket, feel a sense of well-being, of relief, of pleasure in the not doing. It’s like a wealthy friend treating for an elegant dinner or the man at the hardware store kindly assembling the boxed table fan or waking to the rumble of thunder in the wee hours, knowing the windows are shut to the rain.

All this not doing should leave more space in my life, but it seems I’m rather like an extra guest room or a big attic or a nice dry cellar: I expand to fill it. As a friend wrote, “You are called to busyness.” Summer is busy for me: there is a large craft fair I foolishly sign up for year after year; more orders come in from my stores; the social calendar picks up; flower boxes and bird baths beg for water; and the dreary dehumidifier bucket has to be dragged up steep cellar steps every morning.

And yet, with all this to do, I feel a compelling inclination towards leisure. I want to eavesdrop on the conversations of birds; to breathe in the moody, damp air on a slow afternoon walk; to feel the sun sink into my shoulders as I read a paperback full of sand and purple prose; to watch the moon come up over the tops of cedars and warm roofs; to sleep late or get up early depending on whim; to chatter aimlessly with my neighbors; to sit every evening and watch the sun sink into the trunks of maples; to follow the upward trails of the ghost planes; and to stare at the twilight falling on the hydrangeas and the grass I no longer have to mow.

More and more, I would like to be called to that.