My daughter has soccer practice on Saturday and a play date on Sunday, so even though it’s Friday and I’m technically working from home, and even though fat clouds linger and thunder rumbles overhead, I'm mowing the grass because it's started scratching my ankles and swallowing the dog's legs so that it looks like he's hovering when he walks through it, but also, the neighbors mowed theirs, which shouldn't be important but is because it suddenly exacerbates how much mine's overgrown. And I don't want to do this, so I inventory the things that are actually important with each pass, the email I owe my boss and the lesson I need to prep before Monday, but I forget them by the time I turn and mow the next line, steady the wheel just inside the previous pass while I note the follow-up text I need to send the babysitter confirming her availability for Saturday so my wife and I can go to our favorite brewery and drink some beers and play Uno because even though we're overdue for a fancier date, that doesn't matter because all we want is a quiet night together with little more than, well, togetherness. And I do this again and again, again and again until I finish my last pass and a raindrop hits my hand and a few more hit the grass and I smell how sweet it is, really, the work and monotony of it all, so I put away the mower just before the rain picks up, which might be the sweetest thing, really—to look out over it, rows and rows mowed right on the brink, fresh and familiar and simple and intricate at once.