Walden, life in the woods
To tell it, we refer to some of the epigraphs of the chapters that make up Walden:
WHERE DID YOU LIVE AND WHAT FOR?
Two years, two months and two days. That is the time that Henry David Thoreau spent in a small cabin that he built himself, in the woods by Lake Walden. There he lived as a Spartan, a retired ascetic who fished, hiked, observed wildlife and meditated on the spiritual advantages of a simple and simple life in direct contact with nature . Walden's experiment, through which he sought to demonstrate the futility of the lifestyle of the time, crystallized in his homonymous work: an essay halfway between a naturalist's diary and a treatise on philosophy.
And all this for what, Henry-David? The answer is on the plaque that today recalls the original location of his cabin: "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately; face only the essential facts of life and see if she could learn what she had to teach. I wanted to live deeply and discard everything that was not life... so as not to realize, at the moment of dying, that I had not lived".
Henry David Thoreau
THE GAPS
The photogenic Walden Pond, surrounded by luscious New England woodlands, it is beautiful but of discreet dimensions . Thoreau used to say about the landscape that it was on a "humble scale". "Although beautiful, it lacks greatness", he admitted. We pause here to give the floor to Julio Camba:
"The lakes are fine, but you have to be careful not to describe them. In literature they produce a disastrous result. Beware that it is difficult to admire Nature without saying nonsense, especially when it comes to a poetic nature! You can be original at a coffee table, at a gathering of friends, in the face of the ridiculous events of daily life, but there is no way to adopt an original posture in front of 3,000-meter mountains. In front of these mountains, one either shuts up or says nonsense".
So we better shut up.
Reproduction of Thoreau's cabin
VISITS
Dressed as the patron saint of all kinds of ideologies, from anarchist environmentalism to libertarianism, Thoreau is the object of admiration by followers of the most diverse causes. Young activists make a pilgrimage to Walden today or bearded hipsters, plaid shirts and swimsuits (men) and flowered dresses (women). With the book under their arms, they trace Thoreau's footsteps in search of the literary thrill of sharing the scenes of his life. As a tip, they mingle with the crowded New England Sunday families looking for a dip. The mixture is picturesque and, once there, the offer, limited : one can take a bath, contemplate with a thoughtful gaze the rocks where Thoreau's cabin once stood or go around the lake (a route that, at a good pace, does not require more than half an hour) : three simple and natural activities that democratize the possibilities of such diverse fauna . We think Thoreau would have liked it.
READ
"Before love, money, faith, fame and justice, give me the truth." Both the best seller Into the Wilderness and its film version portrayed Christopher McCandless, the young American who left everything to live freely in the wild and ended up dying of starvation (or poisoning, there is discrepancy about that) in Alaska, as a boy highly influenced by Thoreau's experience and work. McCandless's blockbuster story marked the beginning of the author's recent revival in popular culture as maximum exponent of the philosophy of "I leave everything".
And it is that the revival is not only ideological, but cultural . Only in Spain, Walden and Letters from a seeker to himself (both volumes in Errata Naturae) have been reissued and the highly recommended biographical comic La vida sublime (by A. Dan and Maximilien LeRoy, Editorial Impedimenta) has been published. In addition, the internet has become a fertile ground for Thoreau's wisdom to proliferate: the influential cultural website Brain Pickings quotes him every so often, and several themed Tumblr accounts have sprung up that dispense his sound pills of wisdom, images, gifs, and even humorous memes about the author, such as Hipster Thoreau.
A vignette from 'The Sublime Life'
And how is this resurrection of Thoreau explained? According to Enrique Redell , editor of Impedimenta, it is the crisis that has resurrected his figure with more force than ever: "Thoreau chose a "self-sufficient" life: he retired to the woods, and sought not to depend on a power that, from his point of view, denied the highest of the human spirit", he explains. "The coincidences with the present are evident : faced with governments that only seek to fix the messes of the financial powers (on which they depend) at the cost of plundering the resources that should be destined for the common welfare, the only possible response is to raise your voice, to say "you cannot count on our acquiescence", refusing to collaborate", he adds.
Be that as it may, one of the best things to do in Walden is, indeed, sit reading on the shore . The basic (although less original) move is to stand with a Walden specimen. Tip: before opening any of these volumes and reading aloud one of its sentences, remember that Thoreau was not in favor of quoting anyone, not even Thoreau.
'Into the wild' or the love of Thoreau
SOUNDS
They do not abound. In this sense, Walden is pure recollection. The suggestion in this regard made by The Boston Globe is curious: this newspaper recommends approaching at the end of winter, when the lagoon is frozen. The objective? Practice the poetic sport of listening to the creaks emitted by the seams of the ice when it begins to melt due to the effect of the first rays of the sun.
LONELINESS
Although of moderate size (in fact, smaller than other neighboring lagoons that can also be explored), Walden Pond is generous in private microbeaches between three and twenty square meters where you can plant, at most, two towels and sit and look around. Not much more is needed.
THE CITY
If you want to complete the fetish tour and follow in Thoreau's footsteps to the grave, you should go to Concord, the pleasant town around which the writer's life gravitated (and the first American city to ban plastic bottles, by the way) . In the famous Sleepy Hollow cemetery (note, it's not Tim Burton's), is the author's grave: a simple tombstone with a concise “Henry” engraved on it.
Thoreau's grave
ECONOMY
Admission to the state park is free, but the growing popularity of the lake and its small size means that if the influx is high, you have to wait in one of the adjoining car parks for other visitors to leave the place. The wait can be spent browsing through the store's souvenirs or visiting the statue of Thoreau and the replica of his cabin that stand next to the main park . From the nearby city of Boston, it takes just half an hour by car on Interstate 90.
SUPERIOR LAWS
If you feel like philosophizing, this is the perfect place to reach your own conclusions about the relationship between man and nature; if you just want to take a bath, the only higher law you must follow is to use the Walden filter on your Instagram photos . What less.
Walden with Walden filter
THE LAGOON IN WINTER
It freezes and turns into a gigantic, cool and wild skating rink (look at this photo from 1972)
SPRING
Due to its coordinates, Walden is a habitat sensitive to seasonal changes. Better than in spring, it should be visited in autumn, the season in which the lagoon is particularly attractive. . Like the rest of the state of Massachusetts, Middlesex County is one of the hot spots of the so-called "foliage", an orgy of color that takes place every year in the forests of New England, attracting thousands of tourists on pilgrimage. On this website you can follow in detail the chromatic evolution of the autumn foliage so that you can visit it when it turns the color you like best.
Walden in winter
CONCLUSION
In addition to a very successful natural enclave full of literary emotion, Walden is fortress from which to claim a human existence free of obligations and full of free time (indispensable condition in any notion of the concept "holidays", so ours). There Thoreau wrote this:
“Men work by mistake (...) they dedicate themselves, as an old book says, to accumulating wealth where moths and woodworms gnaw, where thieves open breaches and steal. It is a crazy life, as they will understand when they come to an end, if not before.
Amen Henry.
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"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately"