Yesterday, I mowed the lawn, which seems to grow back behind me like the Lernaean Hydra from Greek mythology as I plow through my rounds. (Sisyphus also comes to mind.) I live in a neighborhood of mowers. Every non-rainy day, the electric buzz or combustion growl of a machine munching through fescue, bluegrass, clover, and a bestiary of weeds cuts the air, machines pushed or ridden, scoring rows or circles or diagonals.

No yard experiments around here with native plants and meadow grasses – just the Pantone of greens that come from chemical misters and granules. Lawns sport little flags with business names and warnings to keep animals off the turf for their safety.

Add in the timed sprinklers sprouting to feed the roots and pearl the leaves (even on raining days – timers wait for no man). And the ear-scraping drone of leaf blowers. And the ear-scraping whine of weed whackers. The armamentarium of lawnicure is loud and sharp and exacting.

And expensive. Not all can afford a “lawn” and many places are patchy, blotchy, scrublandish (including portions of our demesne), catch-alls for any seeds on the wind or in bird scat or rabbit droppings.

I do not understand this fascination with lawns. In the U.S., lawns cover more land than any food crop, but despite the staggering amounts of money and time spent on watering, fertilizing, and mowing, they are ecologically barren.

Of course, since we’re dealing with humans, it isn’t really about the lawn, it’s about a display of status and wealth and the declaration that you, the lawn owner, are a steady and dependable individual, tidy and disciplined, a square peg in a square hole. All about social signaling.

Options do abound, from xeriscaping to hardscaping (personally, I’d pave it over and make a nice plaza with resting areas, pergolas, and so on – but I am constantly outvoted in that project). But not in our area: the social signaling is strong and constant.

And I feel the signals pinging me all the time, regardless of my lawn hatred, and they trigger a mild anxiety that I need to get the mowing done as soon as I can, that I will be looked upon as a scoundrel if I don’t maintain the cut edge and regulated height. Even if my greens are mixed and mangy, from the neonish green of a kind of clover to the darkish lime-skin of something that infiltrates everywhere, I must maintain the appearance.

Of course, there is no external “or else” here — no ticket issued, no summons delivered — but there is an internal “or else,” like self-embarrassment or mild shame, which is how social norms become normal: who wants to feel like that when, with a little pushing back and forth, you can be in the good graces of your neighbors?

So, I will continue with the regimen until the snows come, when I will retreat to my journal and map out how next summer I am going to get that xeriscape started and reduce the miles I will have to go before I sleep as I push my Ryobi through the sward. Of course that is going to happen. And all of my neighbors will be on board. Without a doubt.