I had a dream one night where I was overly concerned about where the edges of my body met the non-body universe. It was important that certain things (I don’t know what they were) lined up properly (though I don’t know where that directive came from), and I had to adjust my body to ensure that such alignment would happen.

I don’t know what triggered the dream, but I’m sure part of it comes from the fact that one way of defining homeownership (which is the life project at the moment) is that one is always, always, always concerned about edges, the places where things do or don’t match up and the consequences of these terrestrial intersects.

For instance, property lines. We had a survey done after we moved into the house just to make sure that we and our neighbors knew what was where and who owned what – very important in a society that venerates the “private” in private property. But the lines the surveyors drew were, in one way, just a fiction, both historic and geometric.

The lines the town insists upon to define house lots are kind of just made up. Yes, they’re based on math and surveying instruments (thus science and math, sort of), and we all agree that the lines drawn equal a truth of some kind because we’ve all agreed to agree that way. But it’s a social compact that, like many social compacts, only works because we all agree the fable is real and that we should act in accordance with that invented reality. A state that is fragile and easily upended – witness Prez 47.

As for geometry: what is a line? The line I draw on my north side both has and doesn’t have a material being. I can string a string from one post to the other to show where the line exists. But is half that string line mine and the other half my neighbor’s? And if the string is only a proxy for the measurement made by the surveyor, does the “real” line have thickness and dimension? Edges can be bright and clear as long as one doesn’t go delving too much, at which point it all turns into the dandelion seeds that blow across my lawn.

Inside the edged property are other edgings. Where the lawn bumps up against the stone apron around the foundation of the house. Where the garden hugs the pathway. Where the grass seedling nestles into the scrim of dirt on the driveway. And all these edgings must be patrolled: nascent sprouts pulled away from the stones, vines de-vined as they cross the path, the little plug of roots uprooted from the asphalt crack. Constantly. Because if there is any pause at all, nature will erase every human edging and replace them with its own fractal anarchy, all things blurred and meshed and unowned.

So, I do a lot of patrolling to clean up the edges — but why is that so important? As much as I hate to mow the grass, I get antsy if I see it sprouting and I’m not out there chopping it back. Will my neighbors think less of me if I’m not bagging up my clippings and taking them out to the town compost facility? Is it really of great import if the grass stalks overlap the stone in the apron and the whole line where lawn meets plastic edging looks unbarbered, frowsy, indifferent? We property owners have been whipped into shape by social norms to keep the edges defined and the lines clarified, to keep our good name in good standing, to show that we are proper adults and not edgy ne’er-do-wells.

It is exhausting.

And what about the more metaphysical edgings, consciousness bumping up against quanta and the Heisenberg of our own undetermined paths and confused natures and limited senses? I can barely keep up with the grass — how can I spend any energy on deducing what I mean to an indifferent universe and protecting myself against a hitman nature ready to tuck me into a grave as soon as it can? These are not even edgings, really, just trackless topographies with no horizons or coordinates.

And then the edgings between us humans — some of the trickiest cartographies around, not always easily scanned or located, often camouflaged, sometimes nothing but lies or hallucinations, yet navigate them we must as best we can or else perish. Humans are always mariners on the high seas either drawing the map as they follow it or rebuilding the map as it dissolves beneath them, nothing ever dependable for very long and always filled with vast surprise whenever we actually reach a safe port.

But the patrolling and mapping and deleting and trimming must go on — there is no option at the moment to entrust things to God and sign out from the job. Nor is there any escape from the fact that the work will always be in vain and that entropy will inevitably walk away with the prize.

But.

This grind of necessity doesn’t apply if you refuse to believe that, to borrow Frost, “good edges make good neighbors.” The lord of misrule can always be summoned to overrule the Lawnmowing Dictates and the Edge Decrees, relieving us of being staid servants of the grid. Maybe this is why so many homeowners offload to landscaping companies — to relive themselves of being obliged to the grass and duty-bound to the borders, to enjoy for a moment (at significant cost) the pleasures of not-caring and sloughing off the “should” of things.

But.

That offload is too easy on the soul, softens the spirit — gravity and the green fuse push me to do better, to be better, to be equal to the powers of life and not let myself wither and deliquesce. Edging doesn’t need to be a joyful or inspiring or uplifting experience — in fact, better if it isn’t so that I can keep my beam level and my attitude properly begrudged and face the meaninglessness of my life with courage and humor, eyes clear, body aching, with no debts owed and unembarrassed by my deficiencies.

Before going over the edge, best to make peace with one’s imperfections and sip a good Irish whiskey. Then jump.