My Attempt at Perfection, and Thoughts on That Place
I remember trying really hard one year to get my backyard looking perfect. You know, like those pictures you see. I spent ages pulling weeds, trying to get the grass just right. It was a real battle. Every time I turned around, something else was wrong. A dry patch here, some weird bug eating the leaves there.
I even got this idea to bring in some special mulch, thinking it would make everything look clean and uniform. It lasted about a week before the neighborhood cats decided it was their new playground, and the wind blew half of it away. It felt like a constant fight against, well, everything. Nature just doesn’t like being told exactly what to do, I guess.
It got me thinking about that golf course, Augusta. You see it on TV, and it looks like it’s not even real. Like a painting. I read somewhere they actually bring in pine needles to make it look just so. Can you imagine? Trucking in pine needles!
It doesn’t stop there, apparently.
- They say bird sounds sometimes come from speakers hidden away.
- Heard they even dyed the water in the ponds blue once.
- And the flowers, those azaleas and dogwoods, always seem to bloom perfectly on schedule.
It’s like they’ve completely managed to control every little detail. The whole place started as a nursery, Fruitland Nurseries, I think. Maybe that’s where they got the knack for making plants behave.
Even the membership stuff sounds different. Saw something where Tiger Woods mentioned he’s just an “honorary member” even though he’s won it loads. All the past champs are. They get to wear their green jackets there and use a special locker room, but it still feels like a very specific, controlled world they step into.
Thinking about my own messy yard and then that level of control… it’s something else. That image, that perfect green, the specific flowers, the quiet control – it’s like their own special flag, isn’t it? A symbol of achieving this impossible tidiness. Trying to do even a tiny bit of that in my own space just showed me how hard, maybe how unnatural, it really is. Makes you wonder.
