Yard: Just Die Already

This fall, as temperatures have continued to ride high into the 70s, I've occasionally peered from my back window into a yard of still flourishing foliage, blooming impatiens and lush grass, and been reminded of something Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes once said while stuck in a theater showing an interminable movie:

I second this sentiment, not about The English Patient – a film I actually like (I have a thing for Juliette Binoche, so…) – but to my thriving yard.

Just die already. Die. 

Curse you, global warming. I live in the upper Midwest for a reason. I don’t want an endless summer when every day looks the same. The Albert Hammond song is not a picture of paradise for me. It’s a picture of monotony: mowing and watering, trimming and edging, pruning and planting, spraying and harvesting. The whole point of winter is to put a stop to all this nonsense, so we can instead head toward the Great Indoors and focus our attention on other things, like patching and painting, washing and dusting, organizing and decluttering, or – if you’re like me and put off til tomorrow what you could just as easily do today – watching marathon sessions of obscure music documentaries.

Come spring, when the last patches of snow recede into the dark earth, then I’ll be ready to begin again. Like baseball season, I need a four month hiatus to reinvigorate the desire to dirty up the hands and cultivate the gift of growing something, of fostering new life from dormant dirt.

Until that time, give it a rest. If temperatures continue to rise and Chicago’s growing season extends into November every year, I’ll be forced to abort my Illinoisan residence and head north. 

And if Trump wins next Tuesday, further north still (if Canada will take me).