Monday, Day 30: Easter Grass

Let’s face it: there’s a good reason my father-in-law hates this stuff. Much like the pine needles from live Christmas trees (another thing my father-in-law won’t allow in the house), Easter grass clogs vacuum cleaners, shows up in late August, peeking out of the heating vents, and manages to wedge itself into corners of the wood floor—not to mention causing the way-too-many-animals-in-our-house indigestion.

Plus, besides the color, and maybe the width of each strand, it doesn’t even look like grass.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about waste, because we’re due for a trip to the dump, and because, recently, my spouse pointed out that, for a green campus, the place where I work sure does love to water its grass.  Ironically, the morning after a two hour dialogue about global water shortages, I had to dodge sprinklers outside my building. 

Still, Easter baskets look kind of funny without that Easter grass stuff, and apparently the need for bright, shiny grass for graduation trumps the need to conserve water.

Whenever I think about Easter grass—whenever I find a stray thread clogging the vacuum, or one of the cat’s throats—and whenever the issue of over-watered grass on the campus mall comes up-- I remember a conversation I had a few years back—maybe five, maybe 10—with a particularly awesome student of mine.

She showed up in my doorway on the first day of finals week and announced, “It’s a lost cause.”

I was in the middle of madly grading 100+ portfolios, and I recognized her voice, so I didn’t even look up.

“You’ll pass your stats class,” I said. “Don’t waste your time talking to me. Go study.”

“Did you look outside at the sprinklers? We waste so much water that I don’t have any hope the Earth will still be around by the time I’m 50,” she said.

“You can’t get out of studying for your stats exam just because the world’s going to end in the next 30 years,” I responded, still not looking up.

“I’m SERIOUS,” she said. “What’s the POINT?”

This is the time of year when everyone needs a pep talk, but I’m usually too tired to offer one. This student was pretty tough, and a lot smarter than I was, actually, so I really didn’t have much to offer. Still, I put down my pen and looked up at her, took a deep breath. “You know that plastic Easter grass stuff?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m Jewish, remember?”

“Whatever. You must have seen it around, right?” She nodded. “I was reading the news the other day, and thinking about how exhausted I was by the hopelessness of it all, and how I wanted to do something positive to change things, but I didn’t know where to start. And for some reason I thought to myself, ‘well, at least I didn’t buy any of that wasteful, stupid plastic Easter grass this year.’”

For some reason, likely the lack of sleep that is all too common in late April/early May on a college campus, this cracked us both up.  We laughed for awhile, and I offered her a donut another student had brought to me earlier that day which I hadn’t yet eaten.

She stuffed it in her mouth. “I haven’t eaten all day,” she said.

“That’s dumb. You need food to think.”

“I’m trying to go vegan, but that donut just looked too good. Lost cause, see what I mean?”  And then, she got really serious. “Do you know  what Tikkun olam means?” she asked me.

“Repair the earth.”

“How did you know that? You didn’t go to Hebrew school.”

“I know things. Like that you’re failing statistics right now, and should be studying.”

“I’m serious. How did you know what that meant?”

“I went to an interfaith workshop once about sustainability and justice and, well, God. Out of everything I learned that day, that phrase is the only thing that’s stuck with me.”

“It’s a touchstone for me,” she said, “but sometimes, I honestly don’t know what it means. It feels like a bigger call than any I could ever live out.”

“I think you’re already living it out, activist that you are,” I said. “Maybe you just have to get through this week, and then you’ll see more clearly what next steps you can take. Even if your exams seem meaningless right now, maybe you’ll learn something that will be of use later. You never can tell.” 

She looked doubtful, so I went on.  “Anyway, you’ve done a lot this year in terms of social justice. You talk to people about the stuff that matters to you. You raise money and go to the capitol for marches and live really simply, from what I can tell. You've done a lot more that most people your age. I'm excited to see what you end up doing with, you know, the rest of your life.”

“I also don’t buy that shitty Easter grass stuff,” she said. “But that’s mostly because I’m Jewish. But also because it’s really weird, you know? Who thought that stuff up? Who sat around their corporate office and said, ‘I’ve got an idea. I’m going to shred up some long strands of plastic and sell it to Christians so they can honor the day some guy died by…eating chocolate and dyeing eggs?”

 “Easter is actually the day Jesus rose from the dead, not the day he died. But I guess that’s beside the point. Jesus didn’t have anything to do with Easter grass, either way.”

She shook her head. “I don’t get you people and your weird holidays.” She grinned at me. “I guess I’ll go study for statistics now. Thanks for the pep talk.”