Fighting nature

I just spent a few days at a house at a SoCal golf/country club during which I took some walks around the immaculately groomed premises. I had really mixed feelings. On the one hand, I appreciated the vast variety of plant and tree species-- willows posed next to oaks, miniature agapanthas entwined with sage, and seas of oregano teeming with bumble bees despite the late date. But I also felt an underlying repulsion at the total artifice of the place. It is an essential denial of nature to grow and trim acres of flawless grass in the middle of the desert. Those trees would never grow in the same place, nor would so many types of plant coexist in perfect beds aligned by the fairways. A full battalion of gardeners arrives every day to beat back the normal growth of nature in a battle of Shakespearean character.

It seemed a waste. And once seen in this light, it also seemed grotesque, almost a perversion of nature to fight it in that way.

But before I became too inflated on self-righteousness, I had to remember that we all beat back nature every day. The morning shower erases a natural buildup of oil and sweat accumulated during the previous day. Shaving removes normal hair growth. Deodorant and perfume sustain our unnatural cleanliness. And are manicured nails any less phony than manicured putting greens?

We are in constant dialogue with entropy. Even eating is (at base level) simply a response to the reminder that the engine needs food and without it we won't have the energy to keep beating back entropy.

Still, my yard doesn't resemble a country club.