We were twisted into some impossible pose in Yoga class today, all knotted up with our arms stretched behind our backs and our eyes closed, and all I could think of was Abu Ghraib during a photo shoot. We ended our class in classic "corpse" pose, which I had never heard called that before, the simple supine laying down, hands at our sides, eyes closed. We were supposed to then relax our entire body, starting at the tips of our toes and slowly working our way along up to our faces. I tried not to smile as I thought up more yoga positions: Chalk Outline Pose, Pedestrian Crossing Pose (or AOL Instant Messenger Pose), Cingular Wireless Pose, Washington Crossing the Delaware Pose, Reaching For Top Shelf Chocolate Stash Pose. I had to work hard to relax my facial muscles, but I eventually succeeded in feeling the earth supporting my body as I melted into my purple mat.

Why no one should be without ornamental grass 

Schizoid Lawn Dilemma, Part II

The Environmental Protections Agency estimates that 70 million pounds of active pesticide ingredient (the vast part of each bag you buy, the filler, isn't even counted in that total) is used each year by Americans to treat their 40 million acres of precious turf. In pursuit of what amounts to a living Astroturf -- unreasonably perfect in every way, please, without a weed or blemish -- we spend $6.9 billion a year (1991 figures) on do-it-yourself products alone, says the nonprofit National Gardening Association in Vermont. And we spend lots more hiring professionals to do the work for us, too.

Chemical-free lawncare is being touted as being to the 90s what recycling was to the 80s -- the thing to do, the savvy way to handle things. Exciting developments like safer remedies for problems and grass breeds that grow slower, greener and healthier naturally, are making a "green" -- as in environmental -- lawn possible.

Around the country, forward-thinking communities are testing bans on lawncare's worse aspects: forbidding loud, gas-guzzling mowers; outlawing pesticides and herbicides or requiring those who do use them to post prominent signs that say so; severely limiting watering, and, in the most dramatic cases of all, making the installation of a traditional lawn against the law altogether.

Of course, there's nothing so soft underfoot, or so nice to lie on, as a well tended lawn. On beautiful summer days, I wouldn't trade mine in for anything -- even the smell of fresh-cut grass pleases me, filed as it is into my deepest memory as far back as my first summer, I suppose.

But my lawn is smaller than it once was, and shrinking every season in favor of groundcovers, flower and shrub gardens, and even a patch of meadow. I haven't fed it or limed it in eight years. I've also given up my images of perfection, and learned to live with some weeds. Five to ten percent weeds doesn't warrant chemical warfare, the new thinking goes, so I just mow them and enjoy their fresh green color in the crazy quilt that is my lawn. When I get up from my nap on this pleasing outdoor carpet -- clover, crabgrass and all -- I'll dig out a few dandelions in the name of a beautiful, but chemical-free, future.

- Margaret Roach

Great Writers Can't Always Spel

Every parent likes to think their children are creative, but really - my oldest son is so creative . . . okay, bear with me here. His fifth grade teacher has the students write out their spelling words each week before the day of the test, using them in sentences of their own devising. Because my son's handwriting is sloppy to the point of being cryptic, his teacher told him he could do his sentences on the computer at home each week and e-mail them back to school to her address, where they are then printed, corrected, graded and returned to him. Since all of this stuff is now on our hard drive, I can review his work and share some of it with you. Some of these I can explain, but others I just don't understand at all. The spelling words are noted in bold print:

It was thoughtful of you, but next time don't interfere.
He gracefully unsheathed his sword and scanned the clearing.
The peaceful sensation slowly clouded his mind.
Repay me now and I might not kill you.
Me caveman from prehistoric times!
PLACH! I don't believe in that predicting stuff.
The unknown was waiting.
Report to me at ones!
Carrot stew, eyeballs, and liver. Mmmmmmm, my favorite.
He clutched it loosely in his palm.
Polly puked at the site of polish.
CH-CH. We are having gopher stew.
The ledge collapsed and so did he.
His jealousy was predictable.
Poly Popper picked plump poisoned plums.
Carry Codeil copes with corrupting crumbs.
Clark's committee confesses controlling congress.
A condemn exploded at the force of the bomb.
Nature took over.
Kneel before the king if you value your life.
First comes dough, then the bread.
The playwright wrote the play right.
No danger was insight.
Whittle me timber!
The medicine held sore thoughts.
The scientific word for water is h2o.
"Draw your sword, you cowered!"
The window was condensed.
I found the right peace, and inserted it.
Jimmy opened up the cellar door . . . and was never seen again.
The spatial surprise is in the other room.
He worked as a consumer.
The sheared sheep shook shamelessly.
He suddenly stood up in alert.
Abe liken was a pioneer.
Shy purpose to him.
He had an affair with him.
Oh it is just a harmless beast. Ah, it bit me!
An arc is a big ship made out of wood.
I have a veritable taste.
My decision was partial.
Mining in Alaska was considered illegal after what happened to Jimmy.


With a couple more spelling tests before the end of the school year, I may feel the need to add to this list. Poor Jimmy!

In the Beginning, God Made Water . . .

We were eating dinner tonight and Laura asked for a glass of water. Sam asked if we were going to run out of water on earth some day. I explained that water, to the best of my limited knowledge, was sort of a constant on earth, within our atmosphere - we always have the same amount. No more, no less in the entire system as a whole. My husband said that we just keep using it over and over - we dirty it, we mix it, we take it in and we give it out. I added that the water we're taking in at this meal was possibly peed out thousands of years before by Jesus himself. Sam didn't like that idea, but I explained that urine was mainly water and that it was sterile.

Gibby then asked: Did Jesus pee to make water? (meaning to create water itself, as in "In the beginning . . .") We all burst out laughing. Things sure get weird around here.

Pimple Migration

If my face is Wisconsin and my butt is a beach in Florida, then my pubescent acne must have suddenly reached retirement age.

Hey Dad, are you still proud of me?

Schizoid Lawn Dilemma, part I

We get red in the face pushing the mower around week after week, determined to keep the green, green grass of home in check. Instead of treating it like the rest of our landscape plants and encouraging flowers, fruit and seeds to be set, we thwart its sex drive again and again with our noisy, violent rounds.

Between beheadings, though, we water the grass like crazy and, several liberally applied times a season, force-feed the lawn, urging the same blades we crewcut into submission to grow, grow, grow.

What's wrong with this picture? Plenty, I think, starting with our schizoid dilemma: do we want the grass to grow, or do we want to make it stop? America's love affair with the lawn borders on a fatal attraction -- though it needn't be that way. Under the guise of beautifying the postwar suburban sprawl that we built in the name of progress, we fell too deeply in love to think clearly. And it goes way beyond the grow/don't grow conundrum.

-- Margaret Roach, garden editor of Newsday and New York Newsday and a long-time organic gardener

Yup, that's me only yesterday. 

Not Quite Drowning

I went swimming this morning. No, this isn't going to turn into one of those public journals: I got up, washed my hair and did two loads of laundry. I went grocery shopping and ran to the bank. I clipped my toenails and then polished them, Revlon Punchy Pink No. 38 Super Glossy. Forget it. But I did go swimming this morning.

I am not a swimmer. I usually manage to stay afloat and I do get from one end of the pool to the other somehow, but it isn't pretty. It isn't fast or efficient, either. I have never gone more than two laps without stopping to gasp for air at the side of the pool for a minute or two before trying again. I often do a lap of just kicking with the purple foam floating board in between what I call swimming just to give myself a break. I can spend over an hour on the elliptical machine, I can ice skate, bike or walk for lengthy periods, I can even jump rope at a constant pace for half an hour, but swimming uses mystery muscles that must be lodged in between the ones I usually use, muscles that groan to life when submersed in water, archaic and out of shape amidst overused neighbors. When in water, I am truly like a fish out of it.

Maybe I exaggerate, but I do have troubles. I bought a pair of swimming goggles so that I can now open my eyes under water and follow the blue tile line on the pool floor from one end to the other. I don't crash into the lane markers or walls of the pool anymore. At least not as often as I used to. I am fairly blind without my glasses so I bring my bright green water bottle with me and set it right in the center of my lane on the deck at the shallow end where it lights up in the sunlight from the south-facing windows of the pool room like a beacon to guide me home. My niece Haley, who is on the swim team, told me to bring water with me so I could replenish lost fluids during my water workout. I find it gives me something sort of meaningful to do after each lap as well, instead of just standing there in the shallow end, panting. There are blue squares stuck to the ceiling down the center of the first lane, another way I have found to swim relatively straight during the back stroke, a stroke which I feel much more confident doing as I don't have to put my face into the water, at least not on purpose. I missed ramming the back of my skull into the wall by inches this morning, slapping my hand back over my head into it instead as I backstroked a bit too far past that last blue square above. That frightened me. I can just imagine the water turning red with my blood as I grab the back of my head and faint dead away. How embarrassing that would be.

Other swimmers next to me were doing their laps seemingly without effort, their non-stop lap after lap after lap and perfectly executed flip turns mocking me as I clung to the wall and caught my breath. I guess it's worth it, waking up these dormant muscles and being buoyant for a while every week or so. The soak in the whirlpool afterwards is certainly nice.

I got in the water and did one lap for Georgianna, who got a job and can no longer join me for a swim. She was an encouragement to me in the beginning, coasting effortlessly up and down the lane 50 or 60 times without any need to stop, except to help me kick properly or make sure I was okay as I sputtered like an old jalopy to one of my rest stops. I then did 29 more laps, just over half a mile according to the chart by the whirlpool tub. This distance is a record for me. It took me 50 minutes. In a lounge chair next to the whirlpool lay a man in a dry swimsuit, his paunch slowly rising and falling as he snoozed. That's probably good for the muscles, too. I think I'll try that myself next time.

Our Sad Litter Visitor

A woman with clattered blond hair, middle-aged but not wearing it too well, makes a regular stop at our low wall along the public sidewalk in front of our house. It's a long walk and I need a place to rest on my way, she tells me. You don't mind, do you? I tell her I don't as I think of Jesus and doing it unto the least of them as if I were doing it unto him. I also think of the hostas that are trying to push their way up under her broad flat feet.

A short while after the blond lady starts making regular sitting visits, I begin to notice the alcohol bottles in my garden, held behind the low wall. There are always two of them, mini's they're called, 50 milliliters each: Smirnoff Vanilla Twist, Dekuyper Peachtree Schnapps, Saint Brendan's Irish Cream Liqueur and Cast & Cream Chocolate Temptation Cream Liqueur. The Chocolate Temptation is favored, apparently, judging by the number of bottles we find. I start to check the front garden and sidewalk daily for the little bottles and their gold screw caps. If I only find one, I keep looking and nearly always find the other half of the pair. I start saving these empties in an old ice cream bucket in the back hallway.

On a Sunday afternoon I am home alone, typing here at my desk, looking out the front window. Here she comes again, the least of them with her brown paper bag that I hadn't noticed before. She sits in her usual spot on our wall. Her back is to my house, but I see her head suddenly tip up. A minute later and it tips up again. Her hand goes behind her back and two familiar little shapes drop into my garden, two more Chocolate Temptations.

My pulse quickens, my palms begin to sweat. I hate confrontation almost as much as I hate littering, intentional and habitual littering on my own property. Suddenly my hostas are very important to me and I bolt down the stairs and out the front door just as she is getting up to leave. She is surprised to see me, apologizes, but assures me that she isn't the only one leaving the little bottles. Where did that remark come from? I simply ask her not to leave her litter here any more. She says okay and tells me to have a good day. I put out my hand and place it on her shoulder, look her in the eye and tell her thank you.

The bottles disappear. For at least a week. Then I notice one down the block on my neighbor's front lawn. Out of habit I keep walking until I find the second one. It is all the way down near the corner on another neighbor's lawn. A few more show up across the street and a few days later, in the road. Another week goes by and they are in my garden once more. We watch and wait, but do not see the woman for a long time. We stay near the house for a couple of Sundays, keeping an informal lookout, pretending to be enjoying the spring weather near the front steps.

It is a weekday during Spring Break when she finally materializes. My husband is home and I am once more sitting at the computer by the window. I yell downstairs - the woman is back! Then I watch from the shadows away from the window as my husband goes out to speak with her. The brown paper bag is at her side as she sits on our wall. She is asked to move on and not sit on our wall anymore. She is asked not to leave her bottles behind. She looks surprised and says it's not me. We've seen you leave them. Should I go and get the bucket full of empties to show you? It's not me. I'm just here to check my bus pass. We know by now that she has gotten off the city bus 3 blocks east of here, stopped at Steve's Liquor store one block south and then headed west 3 more blocks to our wall. She denies it once more and pulls out a Kleenex to wipe her eyes as my husband asks her once more to move on and not sit on our wall anymore. He turns and comes back into the house.

I see the Kleenex come out and can not help feeling sorry for her. I again remember Jesus' words about doing unto the least of them and I cringe with guilt and irritation at the feeling of guilt at the same time. She needs help. She is tired and sad. She is obviously disturbed. And I have turned her away. I find comfort by reminding myself that she has not respected us or our property. She has persistently littered and has caused the demise of one of my hostas, a feat I had never thought possible. Turn the other cheek, Jesus' voice in my head. Who wins this discussion? My green thumb? My civic pride? My self-preserving and self-protecting nature? Or my guilt-driven Christian consciousness? Can there be a right answer for this one? I am not an AA counselor or clinic. It's a measly 4-inch wide wall, for Pete's sake! Hardly meant for sitting on.

I think of deterrents, little nails pounded into the top of the wooden wall at close intervals to make sitting unpleasant or impossible, a sign asking anyone who might sit there to please not litter. A friend suggests a graphic of someone tipping back a bottle with a bright red X through it, our collection bucket left out as a garbage receptacle and subtle reminder of past transgressions (too subtle if you ask me - direct confrontation didn't seem to faze her) or maybe a long string of razor wire coiled along the wall with a responsible warning to passing children and squirrels. To my credit, I haven't done any of these things - yet. We remain vigilant, doubting that we have seen the last of our shuffling sad visitor. I pray for her, but then am nudged once more by the Bible story of the man who had a beggar come to his door and he simply blessed him with a few words and sent him on his way. Be warm, be well-fed, God bless you, go away. I know I am silly. I don't even know her name.

What's in your mailbox? 

Lawnmower's First Critique

Lawn mowers are nasty, especially the gas-powered ones.

Edge trimmers are worse and leaf blowers are the worst of all.

I think they should be outlawed.

I think we should all grow things that don't require mowing; things that provide food for animals, birds and insects; things that provide beauty and delight, not just more green pavement.

Words like meadow, prairie, savannah and forest are too beautiful to pave over with things like development, commerce and technology.

Don't misconstrue my meaning; these latter three are good, but they can live within the first four and their ilk instead of instead of them.

My health care is part of the meadow with its Echinacea, Digitalis and Pulmonaria.

My clothing is cotton and linum, as are my bedding and towels.

My kitchen floor is linseed and my house primarily tree.

Even my telephone speaks with the same air that I do.