THE GRASS IS GREENER
Marriage is the ultimate garden – hard work but beautifully rewarding, writes Ann Wason Moore
THERE comes a time in life when you realise you’re going to seed.
From the days when you were magnificently manicured, highly fertile and featured a well-trimmed bush … to now, when you just can’t be bothered to put the effort in anymore.
Where once you were ogled by every eye in the neighbourhood, these days you’re just treated like a doormat, trod upon and unappreciated.
Yes, I’m talking about my husband’s lawn.
He was once a founding father of the trend they call Lawn Porn, he literally took scissors to stray blades and bought every available “literature” on the subject … and yes, the pages were sometimes sticky (from mulch, people).
Those were the glory days. Every morning my better half would wake with his hose primed and ready to shower his beloved turf, trees and shrubs.
And then, one day, I looked out the front windows and saw a brown, overblown expanse.
It hadn’t happened overnight, but it had happened.
It’s not that my husband loved his lawn any less, life just got in the way.
Who has time to primp and prune when there are kids to ferry around town, work piled up in the office and a neverending list of other household chores?
Slowly, the watering can was canned, the herbs were left to shrivel and die, and with enough neglect, there’s nothing left to admire. Lawn, I feel you.
It’s no secret that marriage inevitably leads to less, ahem, upkeep.
While my marriage is magnificently solid, were we ever to split I don’t think I could date again.
The depilatory treatments alone would send me broke. Maintenance payments would take on a whole new meaning.
I tell my husband to treat my spiky legs as a badge of fidelity. Sure, they may draw blood, but that’s a literal guarantee that if he can’t touch them, nobody can.
But it’s time we both turned over a new leaf.
It’s all about making the effort. When you tire of trying, you don’t get the results.
No, we’ll never find the time … but that’s why we have to make the time. Making an effort takes, well, an effort.
This winter is all about the three of us – me, him and the lawn – undergoing a makeover. And it’s not just physical (sorry, sweetheart).
The routine of domesticity means certain chores always fall to specific people – and, somehow, I never have to cook dinner.
This may be because my husband prefers edible food, whereas my signature dish is frozen fish fillets cooked in the sandwich maker with a bag of frozen veg slung into the microwave.
But after planting the seed that perhaps I could learn to barbecue, my good intentions are bearing fruit.
Last week I cooked the first sausages of my life. It was a triumphant moment, ruined only when I burned the crap out of my finger on the Weber as I attempted to take a selfie with the snags.
Still, the result was a sausage party for all concerned.
It’s only a small start. But from little things, big things grow.
Likewise, he’s making an effort to stop and smell the roses. In the words of Ferris Bueller (the ultimate philosopher): “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Marriage is the ultimate garden – hard work but beautifully rewarding … and full of little pests (just kidding, kids). It requires constant attention and if you don’t nip the little things in the bud, they can overtake it. So we’re weeding out the things we don’t need and lavishing love on those we cherish.
And while I get busy cooking, he can get busy mowing.
Or maybe we’ll swap those chores, too.
What can I say? The grass is always greener on the other side.
I TELL MY HUSBAND TO TREAT MY SPIKY LEGS AS A BADGE OF FIDELITY. SURE, THEY MAY DRAW BLOOD, BUT THAT’S A LITERAL GUARANTEE THAT IF HE CAN’T TOUCH THEM, NOBODY CAN
Read Ann Wason Moore every Tuesday and Saturday in the Bulletin