The nightmare of the lawn

Years ago I read Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari. In fact, just like millions of people around the world. I remember that while devouring this best-seller, I felt an urgent need to share with those around me some of the future predictions formulated by the Israeli historian, I imagine with the same enthusiasm as the followers of the most famous 16th-century Provençal apothecary, Miquèl de Nòstra Dama, better known as Nostradamus.

Memory is capricious and, nowadays, I have practically forgotten all the great truths that I seemed to discover in Homo Deus. However, curiously I perfectly remember a piece of information that at first glance may seem anecdotal, but which, for some reason, remained stored in my brain. Harari says that grass is the most cultivated seed in the United States, only behind wheat and corn. In fact, he dedicates several pages to recounting the history of grass which, rereading them, still seem very interesting to me. The fondness for surrounding our house with well-cut grass does not come, of course, from Ancient Egypt or Classical Greece, but has its origin in the French and English castles of the High Middle Ages. At that time, for the French and English aristocracy, grass was a symbol of status and wealth. Simply because it served no purpose. Not even to feed livestock. Therefore, for a king, count or minor baron to be able to afford the luxury of dedicating hundreds or thousands of square meters of land to a crop that yielded no return was irrefutable proof to the public that they were swimming in abundance. In subsequent centuries, the new ruling classes stopped living in castles, but inherited the custom of surrounding their residences with grass. To show off, you know.

Catalans, traditionally not given to ostentation, had always been more about "the little house and the little garden," as Grandpa Macià used to say. Although if we add up the grass that carpets private gardens, roundabouts in towns and villages, golf courses and soccer fields, we will discover that in our country there are also thousands of hectares carpeted in green that need to be watered with water that now turns out to be a scarce commodity.

But let's not get sidetracked. I was telling you about this story of the lawn that I discovered reading Harari because the excellent exhibition Suburbia. The construction of the American dream, which can be seen these days at the CCCB, made me think about it. A cultural history of an ideal of life that materializes in the possession of a large house with a garden, a swimming pool, and a couple of cars in the garage. An urban model that promises in commercial brochures a quiet and safe place, close to nature, to live with family and surrounded by a friendly neighborhood. A supposed earthly and private paradise far enough from the city center, from the public space, always conflictive, diverse and, consequently, alive.

A lifestyle that we have seen reproduced a thousand times in American series and movies:

Scene 1. A father playing basketball with his son in the garage entrance.

Scene 2. An eternally happy and loving mother who lives devoted to baking in an immense kitchen surrounded by appliances.

Scene 3. Barbecues with neighbors who seem like clones of each other, all heterosexual, white, and with children.

Scene 4. A beautiful teenage daughter ---being so is her main occupation, if not the only one--- whom the handsome neighbor's son walks home after their first date and bids farewell at the entrance, where the blessed little flag always waves, with a timid kiss on the lips.

Scene 5. The same great dad who plays basketball so well ---perhaps a decorated war veteran, always a hero to Junior, his beloved eldest son--- mowing his lawn and greeting the neighbor who is also mowing his lawn and who, in turn, also greets another neighbor who is also mowing his damn lawn.

Suburbia shows that the American dream, in fact, is a nightmare. Go see it and you will never look at the lawn with the same eyes again. Long live the city!