Walden Pond

I've never really cared about Henry David Thoreau, not because I don't like his work, but because I haven't read enough of it to care. I have read the obligatory blips from Walden and Civil Disobedience that have been assigned to me in my literature survey courses, but I have never sat down and studied transcendentalist lit. (Not shocking.) While we're on the subject of literature, I'm no snob when it comes to books. I don't like Dickens and I really have no desire to read Crime and Punishment or, or--i don't know--any other equally reputable classic. i have read my share of classics, but they do not automatically find themselves classed among my favorite books.

but i have gotten off topic. Walden. I first saw the Pond--the real thing--five years ago passing through Lexington and Concord with my dad and sister. It was on that occasion that i made the amazing discovery that you could actually go swimming in Walden pond, for Walden is no mere algae-covered mudhole, like most ponds we think about. It's really a small lake: a lake that I fell in love with the first time I saw it, looking down through a thin grove of skinny-trunked trees to the shore where people were happily splashing around. There is something unutterably romantic to me about swimming in nature. Unfortunately, at that time we didn't have our swimsuits. How on earth were we supposed to know that you could actually swim in Thoreau's Walden Pond? We drove off a little wistfully. At least I was wistful.

Five years later--last week, to be precise--I finally made good on my wish to swim in Walden Pond. Now, make no mistake about my motives. I didn't want to swim there because it was the Walden, or because 150 years earlier Henry David Thoreau happened to live at its water's edge in a small, primitive hut where he wrote his world-acclaimed philosophy. Don't be ridiculous. I wanted to swim simply because it was the most inviting natural body of water that i'd ever laid eyes on! When we approached it's water's edge--this time, appropriately dressed--it was more beautiful than ever. The three o' clock sun was pleasantly golden, but not fierce, and there was no wind. We skirted along the edge of the pond to a place that was not very crowded, threw our towels indecorously in the brush, kicked off our flip-flops and gingerly stepped into the crystal clear water. And I do not used this cliche lightly: the water was in every sense of the words "crystal clear." With each step in, the parts of my body that were not yet used to the chill shivered and I could not help but cringe a little--I hate the cold--but the water felt pleasantly warm after a minute or two. I waded in up to my chin, still able to see the bottom, and watched as Christina swam out further. As much as i think swimming in lakes and rivers is romantic, it still makes me a little nervous, and i didn't like the thought of treading water fifty feet away from shore, so i watched from the shallows, side-stroking here and there, trying not to get the top of my head wet.

Well, i will stop before I drift into the realm of sentimentality. But I will say this: Walden far and away exceeded my expectations. i am determined to go back someday. And who knows: for all my anti-literary-snobbishness, i may just take a serious look at Thoreau's literature now that I have beheld his muse--and swum in it.