Thoughts on Weeds

My father has always hated crabgrass, and my mother always assigned me the chore of pulling weeds from the stone patio in preparation for a picnic. Aside from me not wanting to do chores, it never occured to me that removing weeds was pointless and slightly derranged, possibly even wrong, and definately affecting my point of view towards wild flowers, although I still love picking dandelions and placing them behind my ear. Nancy Gift's book A Weed By Any Other Name sheds light on the upside of weeds and the downsides to getting rid of them with pesticides. I'm not quite sure of the product, but I do remember my father spraying the edges of the lawn for either bugs or weeds, and my mother telling me not to walk outside barefoot or I would drag "it" into the house, along with my cat Gracy who was banned to being inside for the moment. When Gift addressed the issues of pesticides in her novel, I was shocked to hear that there was an herbicide called paraquat that is linked to farmer suicide (146). Since my dad grew up on a farm, and two of his brothers still farm on their own land, I was very disgusted by this fact, not to mention worried about people using pesticides in general. I plan to research more specific cases of the relationship between paraquat and suicide. Gift's examination of astroturf was also something for me to think about since I have played soccer for about 20 years. She writes, "I still think it is ironic that we spend a lot of money and resources trying to mimic the natural surface that humans have run on for millennia" (127). There is something about the human need to imitate and create a space of visual perfection that is interesting, but speaking as an athlete, I know that there are also feelings of pride linked to having such a beautiful place to play. At the upper levels, play turns into competition, of course. I think exploring this topic further will serve as a good essay prompt. The main component of Gift's book is this: tolerance. She says, "Tolerance implies dealing with something distasteful, but it is also necessary in even the most deep and passionate love. Perhaps tolerance means that when I dislike something in a loved one, I acknowledge that there might be a defect in my vision." I love this quote because it can be applied to all things, not just weeds, and it addresses the various ways of examining a controversial topic. Perhaps there is a defect in our vision, as a people in general, that we need perfect lawns and fields. Perhaps we are reflecting our own flaws onto nature and attempting to fix the disatisfaction we find within our inner beings. We are bullying the weeds.