Walking Walden Pond

Walden Pond -June 2014


"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Henry David Thoreau

It was a bit anti-climatic to finally go to Walden Pond, and yet I felt the same enchantment that Thoreau experienced in his day as I took a walk around the whole pond. I wondered what he would have thought if he could see it now; college students squealing as their bikini-clad bodies hit the cool water, families picnicking on the shore, ropes and signs directing walkers away from the deadly deer ticks, and the gift shop filled with memorabilia made in China.

Still, the pond itself was lovely, and the water was still clear and cool. The woods were inaccessible in places- unlike the free space that Thoreau enjoyed. I tried to imagine him tromping this path in the pitch dark after a night in the town at the pub, and shuddered at the coldness he must have endured in the winter. I saw the replica of the tiny cabin he called home, and tried to think where all my books and trinkets would fit if I had to live in a space so small. I walked the narrow sectioned off path around the pond and thought about simplicity and living a deliberate life. The drive from Maine to Walden Pond was anything but idyllic-there was traffic and construction, and noise, and yet, once I was actually there, I could see why Thoreau loved the place enough to write a book about it. I was able for a moment in time to actually walk the same path he did, and I was able to think about how quiet and dark the nights must have been. It was a time-travel experience that I can re-live when I need to feel simplicity. freedom, and solitude.