La Nature Des Choses

I first arrived on Thetis Island (where I would end up living for many years) as a volunteer on a farm. A lot of my time was spent weeding the vegetable garden, and sometimes, I just wondered how big the roots of those weeds were, as they were so hard to pull out! "La nature des choses" means "the nature of things": indeed, it is the nature of things to be what they are, no matter what we want it to be - our desires are limited by reality. "The nature of things" is also the title of the famous scientific and philosophical poem by roman poet Lucretius, a 2500 year-old masterpiece of incredible modernity and beauty which is very dear to me.