You Have Not Done Nothing
Meditations on leaf removal and writing
The house we bought in March sat without a caretaker for the better part of a year.
Throughout the fall and winter, dead leaves dropped from the surrounding trees and accumulated in heaps. Cluttering gutters, trapping damp.
We’d expected this home tucked in the woods to requite routine leaf removal, but we weren’t quite prepared for the goliath task it has been to clear the property after so many months of neglect. Since we first turned our attention to leaf removal, we’ve bought and returned multiple leaf blowers and vacuums for faulty batteries or insufficient power; we’ve had to wait out torrential rain and let piles of sopping deadfall dry before we could mulch them.
Throughout the whole saga, I’ve found myself drawing links between this very physical, repetitive, frustrating, often futile leaf project, and the less physical (but equally repetitive, frustrating, sometimes futile) craft of writing.
What follows are a handful of meandering meditations on leaf gathering—or maybe on writing.
In some places, knee-high leaf piles obscure hidden terrain—buried trenches and mounds and tree roots. A stump, a fallen log. You have to pull away the rot and muck to uncover the shape of the land.
We first ordered a battery-powered leaf blower, but the battery lost its entire charge within minutes, every time. So we exchanged that cordless blower for a dual machine—a combination leaf blower and vacuum, both functions of which were controlled by a single switch, meaning that the contraption was blowing and sucking all at once and as a result pretty useless. We even tried a special leaf collection system involving a large funnel and a trash bin.
So many false starts with the wrong tools, the wrong process. But instead of abandoning the project when one tool failed, we started again.
Tried something new.
Each effort was exhausting and disheartening—I questioned whether it was entirely necessary to tackle the leaves; questioned the wisdom in purchasing the house at all; questioned my strength and skill and muster for the task. But finally we found a good machine, and through trial-and-error landed on an efficient process, and bit by bit we are making progress.
The leaf vacuum’s user manual instructs me to move the machine in a “gentle sweeping motion.” If you spend too long focusing on one spot—no movement or momentum—you’ll never finish.
At times the leaves seem to have a life of their own.
In dusk shadows, and after a long day of solitude, I can almost see them writhing, squirming, out of the corner of my eye. I am both afraid of what it might mean for them to be animate beings, and eager to watch what they are capable of.
You disturb the leaves and you do find actual life—millipedes and centipedes and large, thriving snails—a life that has been humming along without you before. It will go on without you when you leave.
But it only becomes visible once you remove the leaves that obscure it.
The wet leaves smell, and the dry leaves churn up dust, and grit lands in your eyes, and leaf debris coat your body like a thick layer of fur. Sometimes you have to reach inside the maw of the leaf vacuum to unblock it. Sometimes humid sunlight beads itself in sweat on the back of your neck, trailing down with a light touch that makes you think a mosquito is traveling along your spine in search of the perfect bite.
In short, leaf removal is not clean work.
You’ll wear the filthy clothes and the sweat and the sunburn to the hardware store later, feeling strangely proud. Then you’ll return home for a shower, where you’ll wash away the grime and enjoy the satisfied ache in your calves.
After hours filling bags, you will survey your progress. You’ll glance around at all the areas where you’ve been working, and you’ll feel like you’ve done nothing.
You have not done nothing.