I remember when I first started hearing this phrase, ‘touch grass’ as some kind of admonishment for having an internet opinion, and I found it so odd. Why grass specifically? I was living in a space that was not especially grass dominant and I didn’t think outdoors = grass, so I thought it was encouraging the admonished user to go play flag football or something. Recently I was reading on the lawn care subreddit about a user excessively worried about their lawn, and someone suggested they ‘touch a computer’ instead.

Today, it came to mind, as I spent several hours dethatching my fairly large lawn, creating enormous piles of thatch, moss, and grass bits. I thought, I could send this out to internet users in need, like bottles of gamer girl bathwater for them to vape, or perhaps they could adhere it to their fidget spinners and touch grass simultaneous to having bad internet opinions.

I have been trying to get more interested in grass, not so much my boring HOA-enforced lawn, though I do like it looking nice. But native grasses, decorative grasses. Someone said your garden should be 60% grasses and I don’t know where I can fit them all in. It is funny that it seems that lawn care and native plant gardening are on these diametrically opposed sides, where I do have interest and opinions about both. Strangely I found native plant groups to be hostile to the strangest things, like bricks. Many users are violently anti-brick, which I never understood. The local wildlife love my brick edging. I’m always finding jumping spiders, wasps, and other strange beings lurking around on the bricks. Birds and mammals follow along it as a natural highway through my yard. If there is debris in the way, they will simply step off the highway, walk around the debris, and get back on it. Perhaps they are as opposed to touching grass as internet users.

But, I wonder, why do native plant enthusiasts hate bricks? I’m not sure; it seems they feel this is self-evident. What are the alternatives? Chunks of wood perhaps? I suppose the bricks just appear too civilized. But, unfortunately, one’s house is presumably part of this environment as well, unless one can find a way to ensconce it in a kudzu cozy of some kind.

So, today I spent several hours completely mired in grass thus I get to have several bad internet opinions. Though maybe I’m immune now, the time spent in nature has completely obliterated internet opinions from my mind, and now I am only thinking about fescue, sedge, dropseed, bluestem, and rye.