Zen and the Art of Leaf Blowing

I spent 25 years making fun of a guy with a leaf blower.

Not to his face, of course. Mostly to Mary. Our neighbor's lawn was already perfect. The grass was thick, green, and trimmed so neatly it looked like every blade had been individually coached. The edges along the sidewalk were so sharp they looked painted on. Yet every weekend, after the mowing was done and the trimming was finished, he would spend hours outside with a leaf blower. We'd leave for coffee with the family, and he'd be out there. We'd come home from shopping, and he'd still be out there. The yard looked exactly the same to me, but apparently there was some highly specialized leaf-blower activity taking place that I wasn't qualified to understand.

At the time, I didn't own a leaf blower, so I figured it was one of those strange hobbies men develop when they reach a certain age. Maybe it sits somewhere between collecting old radios and discussing lawn fertilizer. Whatever it was, I didn't get it. From my perspective, he was spending an entire Saturday moving a few leaves around while listening to what sounded like a small aircraft preparing for takeoff.

Over the next few years, Mary and I started noticing changes. The lawn wasn't quite as perfect anymore. The edges weren't quite as sharp. More importantly, he wasn't outside much. He and his wife had three kids, and those kids had reached the age where parents become full-time chauffeurs. We'd see him early in the morning, heading to a game, a practice, a school event, or some other destination that apparently could not be reached without him. His hair was usually disheveled. He had put on some weight. He always looked like he was running ten minutes behind. I started calling him the broken man, not because there was anything wrong with him, but because he looked like a guy carrying a lot of weight that nobody else could see.

One day I actually asked him if he was okay. He laughed and said he was fine, just busy. He didn't have time anymore. At the time, I thought he meant he didn't have time for yard work. Looking back, I think he meant he didn't have time for himself. The leaf blower disappeared. The perfect lawn disappeared. The guy who used to spend entire Saturdays outside seemed to disappear too, replaced by somebody who was always rushing somewhere else.

Fast forward to last weekend in Door County. My brother-in-law found a discarded leaf blower a while back and got it running like new. I've watched him use it for years and never really understood the appeal. Leaves fall. More leaves show up. Trees don't exactly take weekends off. It always felt like one of those jobs where nature simply waits for you to finish before starting over again. This year, though, the property has taken a beating. Last fall we had a storm powerful enough to pull trees out by their roots. One of those trees actually went through the house. Then winter arrived with ice storms that seemed determined to finish the job. Even now there are branches, leaves, pine needles, bark, and debris everywhere. The woods around our place look like they have been engaged in a long-running argument with gravity.

I was on the roof trying to clear away wet leaves when a friend suggested I use the leaf blower instead of a broom. I thought that sounded ridiculous. Wet leaves don't move. Wet leaves become part of whatever surface they're sitting on. But I gave it a try anyway, and within minutes I was a believer. The leaves lifted off the roof and disappeared. What would have taken me forever with a broom was done in a fraction of the time. Then I noticed debris around the grill. Then I noticed branches along the edge of the driveway. Then I noticed leaves packed into corners. Before long, I wasn't looking for things to clean. I was looking for things to blow.

What surprised me wasn't how effective the machine was. It was what happened in my head while I was using it. For a couple of hours, I wasn't thinking about work, deadlines, schedules, projects, emails, or all the other things that usually occupy space in my brain. I was just moving slowly around the property while leaves, sticks, pine needles, and debris rolled away in front of me. The steady whir of the motor drowned out everything else. Nobody could ask me a question. Nobody needed anything. I was outside, completely focused on one simple task, and somehow that felt incredibly satisfying.

Standing there, it finally dawned on me that my neighbor had never been obsessed with leaves. The leaves were simply what gave him permission to be outside for three hours with nobody asking him for anything. What I had mistaken for yard work was really a small pocket of peace carved out of a busy life. The problems were simple. The results were immediate. You pointed the blower at a mess and the mess moved. There aren't many things in life that work that way. Most of the problems we deal with don't go anywhere no matter how hard we push. They sit there waiting for us tomorrow morning. Leaves, on the other hand, politely disappear into the woods.

The part that makes me smile now is thinking about the broken man. For years I thought he had lost something when the lawn stopped looking perfect and the leaf blower disappeared. I assumed it was pride in his yard. Standing in Door County last weekend, I realized it was probably something else entirely. He lost the time. He lost those few uninterrupted hours where nobody needed a ride, nobody needed help, nobody needed money, and nobody needed him to solve a problem. The leaf blower was never really about the lawn. It was about getting a little breathing room before heading back into the noise of everyday life.

After sixty-one years, I finally understand what he was doing out there all those Saturdays. He wasn't blowing leaves. He was clearing space. Some of it happened to be in his yard. The rest of it was happening somewhere between his ears.

About Greenland Sharks

Greenland Sharks is a Chicago men's group who value friendship, experiences, and the long swim. Just a crew that shows up. No speeches. No name tags. No nonsense.

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