ONE of the more intriguing aspects of my routine early morning brisk walks around my neighbourhood is something most of us miss when travelling by vehicle: the state of the front yards (or lack of) of the houses that we pass by.

I am not saying when you are in a moving vehicle you miss or are unable to see someone’s garden.

I am saying that you will miss the holistic nature of gardens, no matter how small, notably it’s overall ambience, state of decay or care, and sound. Yes, sound.

Nature is a noisy place – there’s no such thing as “serene” or “peaceful” in nature as advertised by property developers (who ironically demolish nature while exploiting the very idea).

Now the word “noise” might not be something you, my dear reader, would readily associate with “nature”, but I am referring to this word in its binary opposite to “silence”.

True silence does not exist in nature, specifically on planet Earth, except in a vacuum or in outer space (Hollywood is a repeat offender – for if they are to be truthful about intergalactic battles, then the super-duper surround sound systems in cinemas will be rendered useless).

Our auditory experience of the everyday, if you care to reflect, is unnecessarily noisy, mostly self-inflicted too – it’s just that the sounds of birds chirping and rivers flowing are instinctually “calming” to us, although at their very essence these are “noises” too.

Some of you, who are fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to live on a landed property, might also gaze out your bedroom window or backdoor to soak in the morning quietude of your yard (or evening – depending what time you usually wake up) while finding your bearings.

Yards beyond its visual aesthetics, is also our point of reference in terms of sound – be it gauging the distance of the approaching roti man, an old newspaper uncle or a strange noise in the middle of the night.

It is also the “emergency meeting point” if anything dangerous happens to the house, a common safety requirement for all commercial buildings but not a requirement for private properties.

If you have a yard, you know when the kids are playing outside by the design of our ears: assuming you have both ears and eyes functioning, we hear in 360-degrees but only see in nearly 180-degrees (women apparently have greater peripheral vision).

What we tend to seek is to minimise the cognitive dissonance between noise and silence to improve the comfort and quality of our dwellings and the relative sound levels of a yard that it exposes to helps us understand the quality of our increasingly depleted personal urban spaces.

To measure how calm a yard or garden is, you must also consider where it faces and what sounds you can hear (your neighbours showering or cooking in the kitchen is probably common in terraced houses).

As society progressed, I have observed a steady decline in the lengths and widths of yards, terraced houses in particular.

I am no real estate buff but as a sentient human being who appreciates some dirt in his life, I find this development rather disconcerting.

Of course, the nature of properties is also your own business. I have seen many a bungalow tiled to the brim without even an inch of a grassy or dirt patch in sight.

I am sure this increases the heat experienced by the dwellers but hey that’s what Mr Air-Conditioning Man is for.

Like I said earlier, while everyone has the right to tell me to mind my own business when it comes to their yards, I also personally feel we have failed collectively to understand – especially more affluent yard-owners – the purposes and pleasures of having a yard, no matter how large or tiny, in the first place.

Yards can be used to grow many things – grass, ornamental plants, trees, flowers, vegetables etc. which may form a garden – and these are the many things that may increase one’s pleasures in having a yard.

However, it is ironic that the more you have the wealth to afford a yard or garden, the more chances the duties of maintaining are relegated to a hired third party instead of partaking in the pleasures of “doing” your own yard.

The saying “the grass is greener” would probably be irrelevant in a high-rise concretised dystopic future Earth and people would probably respond by saying “what grass?”.

I am guilty of this. It took the MCO to make me appreciate my family house’s yard since that was the expanse of my daily reality for a long while (I’ve picked up gardening, well, some aspect of it at least).

To say that it is unnatural for human beings to live in suspended higher and higher in the air (like in apartments) is an understatement since the word “natural” and “unnatural” have been politicised and given moralising attributes (eg, “unnatural sex”).

While yards in themselves are not “natural” as what we define as domestic spaces and private property is purely manmade, it is where we are closest to a natural surrounding since humans have created the indoor/outdoor binary in our evolution and it is the site of your own patch of grass, the photosynthesis (along with other plants you have in your yard) of which gives us oxygen.

Meaning, the potential of being exposed to better air quality is drastically improved. Although this is debatable, having a green space to look out for some peace is always good for the health and mind.

So, the next time you drive past a new high-rise property billboard of advertisement, take note of its use of green colour and catchphrases and words associated with “nature”: it is telling that more and more we are being sold the simulacra and ideas rather than the real thing. – December 18, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.