When Lying In The Grass Is A Really Bad Idea

Jon Johnston
6 min readAug 18, 2021
Photo by Author

It is an idyllic June day.

The temperature is around 80 degrees. There’s a beautiful blue clear sky. The world looks wonderful. The grass in my front yard looks nice.
I have a powerful desire to go out and lay down face first in my front yard. I just want to lie there. I want to stretch out my arms and feel Mother Earth. I want to practice my breathing, to still myself, to see if I could feel her heartbeat.

I move towards the front door.
I open it, prepared to embrace nature.
I stop.
I realize this is a terrible idea.
I can’t just lay down face first in my front yard.

If my neighbors saw me, they would crap themselves. Their immediate thought would be, “Oh, dear God, he’s dead. Again.”

Their second most immediate thought would be, “I hope someone else sees him so they can deal with him and not me.” This is a natural reaction, much like when you can’t help but look when you pass a dreadful car accident, but you’re glad someone else has already pulled over.

It’s easier letting other people deal with a dead guy face down on a lawn.

Better them than you. The only upside for them is that after the ambulance left…

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Jon Johnston
Jon Johnston

Written by Jon Johnston

Lifelong IT Consultant. Was once dead for 20 minutes and now can’t shut up about it. HA and TBI Survivor. jonjohnston.com