two chairs with thoreau

“Be yourself - not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.”
-henry david thoreau

On March 12th, i was the exact age thoreau was when he died.
Often when i relate this to someone, they'll assume i mean that thoreau was forty-four when he died, so on March 12th i turned forty-four?
No. Stick with me, we have a higher standard here. As i became aware i was nearing the age he died, i calculated how many years, months, weeks, and days old he was his life ended. I then calculated on which date i would be that age. I'd never been to Walden Pond, and realized there could never be a more pilgrimage-perfect moment. This was to be the second such commemoration of my life, the first being at the Dakota for john lennon (in that case, i even timed it down to the minute - http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2008/07/mr-wheat.html). The prospect of a pilgrimage made me think this might become the second in a series - years ahead are jim henson, and decades ahead kurt vonnegut. Perhaps twain? Seuss?
-"If thy neighbor hail thee to inquire how goes the world, feel thyself put to thy trumps to return a true and explicit answer. Plant the feet firmly, and, will he nill he, dole out to him with strict and conscientious impartiality his modicum of a response."
I boarded a bus to Boston. A short commuter train ride further would find me in Concord. The pilgrimage was almost aborted when a metro worker with the best of intentions told me there was no way i could make it back in time for the return bus (this was the second time that day a public servant turned out to have no idea what they were talking about). Fortunately, i said "missed buses be damned".
-"Our charitable institutions are an insult to humanity. A charity which dispenses the crumbs that fall from its overloaded tables, which are left after its feasts!"
I arrived in Concord and set out for the pond on foot, having been told it would take half an hour or less. I soon realized that as a big city biker for the better part of a decade, i'd lost touch with the connectedness one feels when traveling by foot, a lesson that seemed particularly germane to the day's errand.
In the previous months, i'd read more thoreau than ever before (three weeks of attempting his journals were like swimming in congealing gelatin). For what it's worth, he's perhaps one of the few writers of whom you don't need to read any full book to appreciate - highlights and quotes might suffice. But the words of WALDEN swirled in my consciousness...i considered the possibility that i might arrive on the day the pond's ice started to break, creating the unearthly noises he described so compellingly (alas, i didn't).
As i neared the area, i realized that i would probably have as much solitude as i wished - the three or four small parking lots were almost entirely empty. I came to the visitor center/gift shop. Determined to not be a cynical poop (until such should be merited), i went in. I had a genial conversation with the clerk, who assured me he'd never heard of a pilgrimage timed in such a way as mine. I looked through the discount T-shirt rack, mostly because i wanted to leave the conservancy some monetary token. I had a quiet (or perhaps not so quiet) chuckle at the unintentional irony in the vending of a shirt that reads "Beware of any enterprise that requires a change of clothes".
-“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
I continued on.
The pond was larger than i'd imagined. I surmised i might be pressed to get back to Boston on time if i walked the circumference...but again knew which choice was the right one.
-"All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man."
The ice had thawed enough to leave a two-foot gap around the edge. I dipped my hands in. So beautiful. I'd been nervous about that, knowing that the pond had become quite polluted before a reclamation project in the 90s. I didn't imagine it would ever again be as henry knew it...water more than a hundred feet deep so clear you could see the bottom in almost every part...but it was humbling to know how well the curators had done their work. In the one area of deeper visibility i found, the clarity was unlike any pond i'd ever seen.
-“Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up."
There was still a blanket of snow through the woods. As i followed the several-mile trail, i met only seven or so strangers, most at the very end. The cabin area itself was beautifully done, a testament to simplicity. There was no reconstruction, simply concrete blocks outlining the area, plus a commemorative pile of small stones brought by pilgrims.
In an unintentional coincidence, my own new little home is almost exactly the size of the cabin - with exactly the same number of chairs.
-“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”
Lost in serenity and the simplicity of being, it was a day for silence. Henry would have approved. When i finally turned to leave the pond, i passed two women who were merrily singing in some foreign tongue. He would have liked that too, immeasurably more than any conclave of babbling brainiacs. There was no more perfect sound to him than a bird in song.
-"I have just been through the process of killing the cistudo (tortoise) for the sake of science; but i cannot excuse myself for this murder, and see that such actions are inconsistent with the poetic perception, however they may serve science, and will affect the quality of my observations. I pray that I may walk more innocently and serenely through nature. No reasoning whatever reconciles me to this act. It affects my day injuriously. I have lost some self-respect. I have a murderer's experience in a degree."
When i was a youth, thoreau's words touched me deeply. It might be hard to overstate how much his thoughts on living simply and civil disobedience informed the person i was becoming. In revisiting his words, there is no shortage of examples in which my life has been an extension of his. Also obvious is how his own life had been an extension of eastern philosophy. When i finally sat on a very late bus back to New York, it occurred to me that my life might be held up as one of the most thoreauvian you'll ever meet. I even imagined participating in a worldwide most-alike contest. That last thought might be a conceit that wouldn't bear too much scrutiny. There are certainly areas in which henry and i diverge...his journey into transcendentalism little resembles my secular exploration of human barbarity. Yet in terms of manifesting his essential message on how one ought live...the embrace of authenticity, the rejection of materialism...even life details and words of his that i'd never encountered to as a youth, are often an almost ridiculously-accurate mirror of who i am.
Of course, henry himself said that we only learn that which we already half-know.
-"Perhaps I am more than usually jealous of my freedom. I feel that my connections with and obligations to society are at present very slight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, and by which I am serviceable to my contemporaries, are as yet a pleasure to me, and I am not often reminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful, and only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords the highest pleasure sustain him. But i foresee that if my wants should become much increased the labor required to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, neglecting my peculiar calling, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that i shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage."
So today, i've collected for you the fruits of my return to those words that once filled my youthful spirit with longing and purpose. Quotes that either moved me then, or would have. Very occasionally, words trigger some deep, elemental recognition. This ultimately, is the greatest gift a writer can offer.
This ultimately, is the only reason a writer ought write.
-"How many there are who advise you to print! How few who advise you to lead a more interior life! In the one case there is all the world to advise you, in the other there is none to advise you but yourself. Nobody ever advised me not to print but myself. The public persuade the author to print, as the meadow invites the brook to fall into it. Only he can be trusted with gifts who can present a face of bronze to expectation."
Thank you, henry david.