of lawns and little imperfections

how many of you are familiar with panera bread? i used to work there, but that's beside the point. for lunch today i went to panera, got half a turkey sandwich and a bowl of the best french onion soup ever, and took it to my new apartment where i ate on my porch in the sun, overlooking browning grass and a couple quiet streets. i can't say exactly why i like it here so much. it's green, but it's never so green as some other places i've been. oregon's green like something you thought only existed in exaggerated advertisements for cameras; the green in belo horizonte occasionally peeking out of city streets between buildings like a hidden thing. if there's a flaw to this place, this is it. this is lake country, and trees find all the water they need in the ground, but the grass here, and even more so home, in iowa, visibly asks for more rain than it gets. it weathers early, like age settling too soon. and sometimes the rain stops for a while, and, unless shaded, the grass dies for its shallow rootedness. a little further north and this is no concern because there are so many trees to provide shade that the grass either thrives, or dies buried in it and pine needles . . . or in water. and besides, the trees themselves comprise such a lush green that a brown undergrowth is a welcome contrast. now, don't get me wrong, i love a nice lushgreenlawn, and wouldn't care very much at all for a half-to-three-quarters dead one, but there's something in the slightlyyellow, bareblybrowninggreen of the middle of the united states that suggests a consciousness of the weight of living and the inevitability of not. and it's somehow freeing.