“I Miss My Lawn”

One writer shares what he loves most and looks forward to most eagerly when it’s midwinter



By Sinuhe Xavier

There are days when the absence of green grass feels louder than anything else in my life. It is strange how a patch of earth can become a pulse, how a yard can become a kind of map of who you were and who you hoped to be. My son Cooper and I feel that absence like a pulled thread. We talk about it more than we admit. We miss the way the yard used to glow in the early evening when the light slipped over the ridge and turned everything soft and forgiving. We miss the way the deer wandered in without ceremony, as if the place belonged to them or maybe belonged to all of us, a quiet agreement between species that this little corner of the world could be shared. They would stand there chewing in silence, and we would watch them from the window, both of us holding our breath without knowing why.

What’s Wonderful About an Expanse of Green

It is funny what you miss when the seasons change. You think it will be the heat or the sunlight or the smell of cut grass, but really it is the rituals stitched into the land. My son and I miss the simple act of throwing a baseball back and forth, the rhythm that could settle a whole day. The way a glove sounds when it takes a hard throw. The way he would grin when he caught one clean. The way time seemed to slow down, almost out of respect, as if it knew these were the kinds of moments you carry years later when everything else has slipped away.

And Churro. God, we miss that dog tearing across the yard like he had just been released from some invisible gate, ears flopping, eyes wide with that ridiculous joy only a dog can summon. He would run until he couldn’t, collapse into the grass with that heavy, satisfied sigh that felt like a sermon on how to live. Watching him was a reminder that the world is not complicated unless you choose to make it so. Give him space, give him light, give him grass beneath his feet, and he became the purest version of himself.

The yard held us. It held our routines and our noise and our quiet. It held my son growing taller every month. It held my worries in a way that made them feel smaller. It held Churro’s mad sprints and those deer that wandered through as if guided by some old cosmic agreement. Now it sleeps under winter’s blanket of snow or the simple fact that life moves faster than you expect.

Holding My Breath

But it will come back. That is the part I remind Coop when the days feel too gray or too still. Green always returns. Not because we deserve it, not because we earned it, but because the world does not stay barren forever. The thaw arrives. The earth softens. The colors return in slow deliberate strokes. And when that grass comes back, we will step outside and feel that familiar give beneath our feet. The deer will return like they always do. Churro will explode into the yard with that same wild joy. And My son and I will pick up the ball and fall back into the rhythm we left suspended in the air like a held breath.

Green always comes back. It is just taking its time.

About the Writer

Sinuhe Xavier is a Colorado-based director, photographer, and writer. His visual language has shaped campaigns for brands such as Nike, Bentley, Rivian, and Stetson. As the founder of COVET, a fine art photography platform devoted to elevating artists, Xavier continues to define a modern aesthetic rooted in a deep respect for place.