Walden Here We Come

I read Thoreau's "Walden Pond" when I was 19 or 20. I was living alone in Hartford, CT, there for my first fully professional job as a ballet dancer.

Though I had aspirations to spend my new money on having a darling apartment, I began my life in Hartford with as close to nothing as one could begin. I was given a love seat that was being discarded. I borrowed a twin bed and desk. I think I had one chair, though I don't remember now how I came by it. I bought a pot and inherited two plates. I used a paper mug from a near-by coffee shop until it fell apart. I had no car and walked to and from ballet. Blessedly, my best friend lived in the building and she had a car, so I went with her to do my grocery shopping. When it was time to fly home to Utah, I walked to the Greyhound station and bused, alone, to New York to catch flights in and out of Kennedy or Laguardia.

Needless to say, my life was fairly simple. Living alone without a TV or computer meant my spare time was spent in books. I thought it a gift from God that on my birthday that year, there was a terrible blizzard that blanketed the area in a deep enough white that ballet was cancelled. My other present from God was being called as Gospel Doctrine teacher in my small, singles branch. I taught the Book of Mormon that year, and those must have been among my most thoroughly prepared lessons in my life.

In addition to the Book of Mormon and other books, I read Walden Pond, borrowed from a tiny and always deserted branch of the library that wasn't too far from where I danced.

I felt very close to Henry David Thoreau. I'm sure it helped to be physically close to where his experience took place. (Close in relative terms. I might have gone to Walden Pond if I had a vehicle to get there, but at that time, I didn't even have a driver's license and didn't think of trying to convince my late teen and early twenty-year-old peers to make that sort of pilgrimage.) But as I read of Thoreau's flora and fauna, I imagined a lusher version of the nature I could experience in my 20 minute walk to work.

And as I read of his simplicity - his being unbounded by objects needing to be cared for - that touched a note too. Instead of buying more pots, chairs, and all the objects I'd initially imagined for my "home," I saved y money instead for travel. I traveled to Florida to see my high school and adventure through Disney with my friends from that time in my life. I returned to Seattle during one break and felt as much at home as I always did in that city. I spent time in New York playing, seeing friends, and getting to know that city. I grew to love quiet, peace, the adventure of learning by going and doing, and the LACK of everything that would complicate any of the quiet, peace, and ability to GO!

Finally, I was inspired by Thoreau's injunction to 'advance confidently in the direction of my dreams and live the life I had imagined.' His life and experience, as well as those of Emerson's, have been  influences ever since. I'm sure his writings were the seeds that blossomed into attached parenting, into homeschooling, into volunteering at This Is the Place, into following my passion for history, into an appetite for meaningful travel, and all the rest.

I finally made the pilgrimage to Walden Pond last summer. Q and Kai weren't there. And for the girls and Arthur, it was a nice day on the beach. For me, it was almost as if I had come to return and report. "This place changed you," I might have said to Thoreau, had he been there. "And it changed me too. I have tried to fill my life with the things that nourish my soul and leave the rest behind. I have chosen, again and again, to find richness by 'letting alone' all that doesn't matter. Thank you. Thank you for what you learned here, and for making a record of it. It has made a difference to me."

But my mission has not ended. And what could the next chapter hold?

Well, that is what THIS blog is for!

After 6.5 weeks of walking through America's Colonial past last summer, we flew, exhausted back to Salt Lake City. Our bodies were tired, but our eyes were fresh and being home felt new again. As we trudged through the airport, I asked EV if she could believe we were home and that we had been gone for so long.

"How did we do it? WHY did we do it?" I marveled, and added, exhausted, "I'm ready to be home, for a long time."

We all agreed. And within the same breath ALSO agreed Europe would be the next BIG away-adventure. But 6 months later, we are still ready for HOME. Though Kai will go back to Boston this summer, the rest of us want to STAY LOCAL. This works well financially anyway. I will need a lot more savings to give Europe the thorough experience we are used to. AND we need to learn about all that we will love, just as we delved into American history to really appreciate what we saw back east. So in the spirit of "cherishing" the "present condition of things" with the "enthusiasm of lovers," we are embarking of a journey of another sort. And one still inspired by Walden.

We are going to the woods. Not in full Thoreau style. Not to a cabin built by our own hands. Not alone. But with the expectation that we will come "home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character."

Our house is rented out for 50 days this May-Sept (so far), and during the bulk of this time, we are 'going to the woods. Because I wish for us to live deliberately. Because I want to experience with my children living deep and sucking out all the marrow of life. Because I hope we will front only the essential facts of life and see if we can not learn what it has to teach.'

This has been another dream of mine. And it is waiting in our own relative back yard. We bought a camper. It will be our home for the bulk of the summer. To paraphrase Thoreau's friend and contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'Here we will be - that is the great fact, and if we will tarry a little longer, we may come to learn that here is best.' We will 'see to it only that we are present, and we hope that art, nature, hope, dread, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being shall not be absent from the campground where we'll be campering.'

This blog is the record of the "castles we are building in the air" and the failures and hoped-for successes of our experience building the foundations under them.