I don't walk barefoot in the grass. There are crawling things that will bite my toes off and frog poop and snakes and spit and all manner of other things I've seen in the grass over the years, all waiting there — I'm sure of it — to greet me in between the toes at first step.
My parents' driveway forms a giant backwards "h" and surrounding the part where the curve meets the line is a section of grass. I won't walk through it; I'd sooner walk all the way down the curve of the "h" and turn once I hit the straight section.
All this might seem very odd, given that after years of pounding my feet in dance (in what I'm sure were terribly unsanitary shoes) I've lost a lot of feeling in my feet. Add that to the fact that I was fine walking barefoot through the streets of downtown Orlando several weeks ago, and I start to make even less sense.
You can't stub your toes on the grass, or get calluses from the constant friction, or a cramp in your knees or back because of the hard surface.
So what is it about the grass that makes me prefer concrete?
I remember things about the grass, about all the things I've seen go into it in my lifetime. Bugs and snakes and the spit of a thirteen year old boy. Frogs and lizards and earthworms that have dried up on the pavement and gotten blown back into the grass by the men who take care of the lawn. Not to mention when I found out what fertilizer actually was… And though I can't see these things in the grass with my eyes, my mind envisions all the terrible things that are hiding between the bright green blades and my feet walk around them.
This entry started as a way to introduce the definition of sexuality Rob Bell introduces in the second chapter of Sex God. But here I am at the end, having just described something completely different.
Things happen in our lives and collect in dark places, between blades of grass, and in our fear of being bitten or touched by them again we simply make a pattern of walking around them. We're afraid to delve into whatever it is that might be there now, after all these years. We have a hard time imagining that what's waiting for us is something beautiful — the crisp smell of fresh cut grass, the sound of nature moving underfoot, and the freedom that comes with no longer living in a posture of fear. We walk along the cold and hard concrete preferring the comfort of predictability and the calluses that come with it to the surprises waiting for us on the lawn.