I’m a little bit miffed with my experience with nature lately. Having recently met with an outdoorsy illness from a spider bite, I’m not keen at the moment with the great outdoors.
Some people are outdoorsy, others are not. Who do you picture when you think of the word, outdoorsy? Someone skiing down a mountainside? A person dressed in flannel, chopping firewood?
When you think of “outdoorsy,” I’m guessing you don’t picture a person attached to an IV bag filled with antibiotics, fighting off the effects of a spider bite. Or, you don’t think of the person carrying an inhaler or oxygen tank, trying their best to breathe through the fog of particles in the air.
“Outdoorsy” elicits images of vitality, movement and synchrony with nature. We’re talking free-range chickens, not the ones cooped up indoors.
Two instances come to mind when I think of the outdoors. First is from a television show that I enjoyed quite a few years ago. It was a comedic detective show starring a man named Monk, who was afflicted with somewhat severe OCD. The line that I remember was something like, “nature’s all over me, get it off,” as he frantically brushed leaves or some such “dirt” off of his jacket.
Notice that people who are not so fond of nature, would definitely call soil, dirt. Folks who are keen on nature, would possibly call dirt, earth or something similarly holistic.
The other great outdoors thing that my husband and I often reference comes from the great French post-impressionist artist, Paul Cezanne. Comparing the beautifully lit, nature-rich Aix en Provence to Paris, which he called “nature starched and tormented.” Have you ever noticed people, who’ve chosen to live surrounded by nature, sweeping the dirt and vacuuming the leaves outside?
Nature and the outdoors are considered entirely in the eye of the beholder. Nature, for instance, is not all roses, bunnies, bluebirds, fawns, and soft beds of leaves. It’s also decay, thorns, ticks, vultures, and hornets.
Zero degrees and 95 degrees Fahrenheit are the most hideous extremes. I’m reminded though, that all the complaining in the world won’t change the discomfort we feel at these extremes that are natural to the summer and winter seasons. That’s nature. It’s probably human nature to complain about it.
Some people are oblivious to nature until some aspect of it hurts them. Maybe they get a sunburn, suffer respiratory torment from breeze-borne plant reproduction, gesundheit by the way, itchy skin from this bug bite or that, a deer obliterates the hood of their car, a bird poops on their car window, a porcupine sends their dog to the vet, a root finds its way into their living space, etc.
Then there are folks who make sport of nature with hiking, boating, floating, rambling, hunting, skiing, fishing, planting, gardening, seeding, feeding, watching, preserving, conserving, and protecting it. These humans are probably first thought of when you mention “outdoorsy.”
Nature and the great outdoors are double edged swords. They’re not one or the other, they cut both ways.
Nature can be both heartbreaking to the human soul as well as delightful beyond description. Animals can be terrorists as well as the most beautiful creatures ever made. Nature is the very definition of dichotomy.
Nature is by definition suitable to the outdoors. Spiders, ticks, mosquitoes, raccoons, bees, snakes, foxes, and such belong outdoors. I’ve always felt somewhere down deep that we humans have invaded on the natural territory of these species. Then there’s the Genesis scripture that tells humans to subdue and take dominion of these co-conspirators of the earth.
I think in twenty-first century earth, we humans just once in a while crave the simple, uncluttered life of nature. We may want for a moment to trade in the conveniences and distractions of civilization because these things can literally make us sick.
We sometimes want to participate in the reality of nature in a “life imitates art” kind of way. Because in art, nature is perfect and beautiful. But nature, in reality, can be devastatingly intrusive to the civilized way of life of us folks acculturated to convenience and comfort.
When spiders come indoors, bees sting, ticks bite us, and mosquitoes infect us with disease, nature is seen to have gone too far. In summary, when the great outdoors comes indoors, we humans rebel against her. She’s only to enter indoors by invitation.
We invite nature indoors via house plants, stuffed animals, domesticated pets, books, and home-extensions such as porches, decks and window gardens. We have taken that Genesis scripture and domesticated it to our twenty-first century liking, subduing nature and making it work for us and not against us.
Thank God for medicines, many of which are derived in some way from nature, much of it essentially homeopathic at its core. We seem to work with nature to fight nature and that’s the direction we’ve gone. I guess, in that sense, we’re all outdoorsy. We’re indoor-outdoor carpet, so lie down and enjoy it.