The Nature of Nature

The Nature of Nature

I was placing the loaf of bread I had just baked, a braided raisin brioche, onto a serving platter when my husband came into the kitchen. “Wow,” he said when he saw it. I appreciated his obvious compliment but then he added, “Are you going to blog it?” Huh? “I write a blog about nature,” I said. “Well,” he said, “this is your nature.” That stopped me in my wash-the-pans, clean-up-the-kitchen, start-the-dinner tracks. It got me thinking about the nature of nature.

I looked up definitions in several sources. Nature is a noun with many connotations. What it basically comes down to is essence, whether of a person or thing. It takes in, well, everything. The concept embraces the microcosm as well as the universe. It defines the character of the subject, its makeup and qualities, the substance that separates it from other things and the spirit that differentiates it from related things. It doesn’t just refer to Mother Nature’s realm, as we usually tend to think of it, although one of its meanings is that which is separate from human habitation aka the natural world.

So I decided that he was right, I am part of the larger nature of all and baking is one of my attributes. It speaks to how I think of myself, which is as a supportive, nurturing person. I used to bake bread all the time but haven’t for a while though I do bake treats to have with our afternoon tea, a habit we adopted after we experienced it at a B&B in Maine one summer. And bread’s nature is that of a life-sustaining, fundamental product. What better way to express what I think of as my nature?

And not to be picky about it but bread is composed of the non-human part of nature, made of flour and yeast, eggs, sugar and butter. Yet it wouldn’t be what it is without the human influence to put it all together. Simple, right? I’m still thinking about it.

How would you define nature?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/nature