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Jesus Gave Us Grass, Not AstroTurf
There was a time when I was maybe 8 or 9 that we had some sort of pipe trouble at our house and they basically had to replace all of these pipes. They had to tear apart part of our front lawn to gain access and pretty soon, we had no grass. I was really freaked out because up until that point I had somehow believed that grass was just countless layers of green blades that went deep for at least a few miles into the ground. To see the ground torn up into piles of dirt was shocking. We had to have those panels of grass put in, the kind that is real grass but is already cut into a perfect rectangle so you can lay them out on a lawn until they all grow together again. A grass quilt if you will.
Now by this point in my life I’ve heard the joke that Jesus is not your savior but your gardener more times than I can remember (I grew up amongst assholes) but the guy who put in our new grass was actually named Jesus. I am Hispanic but I had never met anyone named Jesus before this moment so I was intrigued. I sat on the window seat in our living room and watched as Jesus backed his truck into our driveway. The open back of the truck was piled high with grass tiles as I called them from the moment I saw them. He began to unload them in small batches and soon started to lay them in neat rows; soon we had a lawn again. My mom sent me outside with a glass of water for him when he was about 2/3 done. I made my way over the spots that were still basically just piles of dirt and met him somewhere in the middle of the lawn.
“My mom wanted me to give you this,” I said shyly. I talked a lot as a kid but had to get into a comfort zone to really let loose. “She said that if you wanted lunch to let her know.”
He nodded his thanks in between sips of water. He finished the glass and handed it back to me with a smile. I made my way back to the house, trying not to step on the new grass, unsure as to how it would react. This wasn’t the old grass I was used to rolling around on after all. Jesus saw me being cautious and gave me a reassuring hand gesture.
“You can walk on it,” he said with a thick Spanish accent.
“I don’t want to mess it up,” I answered in Spanish. He looked surprised and pleased that I spoke Spanish.
“How could you mess it up? It’s grass,” he answered in Spanish this time. “It’ll grow, don’t worry.”
I thought about this and stepped gingerly on the grass. It felt like the old grass but less secure underneath my feet.
“It feels like it’s not really the ground,” I said. “Like, it’s not entirely there.”
“Nothing is ever entirely there. Otherwise, your old grass would have been here forever.”
I thought about this for a minute.
“It’ll grow together and it’ll become part of the ground but it’s not permanent, nothing is,” he said. You could see the heat that day and we were both sweating, him more so than me. I walked back inside and watched from the windowseat again. Soon he finished and packed up his truck, waving to me before driving away.
I swear to God, that day stuck with me perfectly, it still does. How did we get this gardener who was also a philosopher of sorts? Who was he? I have no idea. None. All I know is that I thought about this a lot today. Not because I was thinking about grass but because I was thinking about love and the things that unlike grass you can’t really hold and that you can’t just lay down new again. I feel like the important things in life are simultaneously the strongest and the most fragile and even though all you want is to control them and make sure they’ll be okay, all you can do is let them go and let them be. They’ll grow together or they won’t. Our lawn grew together from sheets of grass into one cohesive unit but there was a part near the side of our house that just never seemed to get in line with the rest. This is how everything is and all I know is that if you have something good, no, not even good but extraordinary, that’s rare and all you can do to keep it together is let it grow on its own and see what happens.
I learned when I was 18 that you shouldn’t talk about your ex-boyfriend on a first date. I was going out with this guy I met once and who I spent a lot of time talking to via IM. I was freshly plucked from the grips of my family and away from home, at college, for the first time in my life. I had dated someone for the first three months I was there only to be dumped. Dumped. I had heard the word before but wasn’t sure what it felt like, I was always the dumper. Now I knew. It felt like shit.
I spent weeks trying to figure out why this had happened. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what went wrong even though the tiny voice behind one ear kept whispering, “He wasn’t right,” to me. No. I just didn’t understand what had happened. I talked to this new boy a lot. He listened to me as I typed IM after IM about how there was no exact moment where things went wrong, they just ended. He was patient. He told me that The Sea and the Rhythm by Iron & Wine reminded him of me. I told him that my ex didn’t like Iron & Wine. Somehow, he still wanted to ask me out. My roommate pushed me out the door.
We were going to have lunch on a Sunday afternoon. I drove to the restaurant, a small Spanish fusion place in downtown Gainesville; all I knew was that it had ropa vieja. It was raining and I parked right in front. I looked up and he was standing in front of the restaurant under an umbrella and holding peonies, which I mentioned that my ex never remembered were my favorite flowers. He came to my car door and handed me the flowers and held the umbrella over my head as we walked up the restaurant. We were seated and we looked at each other awkwardly.
He told me about how he was studying film and how he was going to do an internship at PBS, working on a documentary about sea turtles or something. I told him about how my ex was a vegetarian. He told me about he really loved The Long Halloween, which I’d mentioned before to him. I complained about my ex not reading enough books. We ate our lunch. He was beyond polite and wonderful, attempting to engage me in conversation about anything. He paid and we walked outside. It had stopped raining and the air felt thick and dewy. We said goodbye and he kissed the side of my mouth. I drove home and put the peonies in a vase on my desk. I went to bed but not to sleep.
He never called me again and we didn’t talk anymore. I was mortified but I realized that I had acted like a real bitch. I got back together with that ex, the one who wasn’t right at all, two weeks later. He moved in with me and we fought all the time. I’d smoke cigarettes out the open bathroom window after slamming the door shut. I thought about the boy with the sea turtles and how he brought me flowers on our first date. I knew I had made the wrong choice at the time but it was like, falling off your bicycle and getting back on with scraped knees. I made the wrong choice for the time but the right one in the long run because I learned what I didn’t want and what I deserved and the kind of man I wanted by my side. I learned how to keep an eye out for the right man and when he came along, I knew right away. I had dreamed him. I wasn’t sure how to handle it when I found it but if I had learned one thing, it was to look forward and forget, to just go and move with it.
And most importantly, to be kind, so kind, to anyone who is also putting himself, his heart, out there. Do not stomp, do not be cruel, do not forget that you have a heart as well. Use it.
How To Make Milk Steak (Charlie Day’s favorite food)
Prep time 15 Min.
Cook time 20 Min.
Ready in 35 Min.
Servings 4
INGREDIENTS
* 4 (4 ounce) cube steaks
* 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
* 1 3/4 teaspoons ground black pepper, divided
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 2 eggs, lightly beaten
* 1/4 cup lard
* 1 cup milk
DIRECTIONS
1. Season meat with 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and 1/4 teaspoon of the pepper; set aside. In a shallow dish, mix flour with 1 teaspoon of the pepper. Dredge each steak in flour. Dip in beaten egg, then dredge in flour again.
2. Heat lard in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Fry steaks 3 to 4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
3. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the dredging flour into oil. Cook over medium heat for 1 minute, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of skillet. Gradually whisk in milk. Cook, stirring frequently, 3 to 4 minutes, or until thickened and bubbly. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoons pepper; gravy should be quite peppery.
via itsjustjared
