On Walden Pond – A Review

Let me start this “review” by setting the record straight: I have never been to Walden Pond. I’ve had opportunities, and I’ve threatened to go. I’ve gotten so close as to have booked a hotel, only to cancel a few moments later.

I want to go. In fact, I even mean to go. But, as most of you are aware, we are house bound at the moment.

I have the route I want to take planned and everything. I plan to spend an unfair amount of money on a train ticket to Boston and then a light rail from there to Concord. Then I’d walk to couple of miles from the station to the lake.

I want to go there, frankly, because I feel like I have to. I sincerely have no strong connection to Thoreau. His words never stirred me as they’ve stirred others. They’ve had a punch, but not enough to shake my cross-armed guard.

But the place? The place has power. Power that, for whatever reason, seems to call to me, like Homer’s flowery meadows, Steinbeck’s groves, or my apartment’s now padlocked roof. Of all of them, Walden calls to me the loudest. And I want to go.

But there’s a ceremony to it all. Going there has to be forbidden, or part of some quest. I need a “call to action,” See: excuse (n).

And unfortunately, that excuse cannot be because mankind is currently grounded. It’s gotta be personal.

And yes, this is some Joseph Campbell malarkey.

And no, I have no delusions to become a Byronic hero.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about how epic this quest is going to be.

I’m kidding of course. I just feel like somewhere that’s become so much to me in my head, has to having matching intention. But I suppose that’s the problem with places of power. They’re all in your head.

Thoreau knew that. That’s why he left the places that had power over him. That’s why he went to the pond, to find a life made deliberate. To find his own power. And now, the dozens of literary tourists that mark the globe flock there because it now has its own mythos.

A place designed to have no meaning suddenly is the embodiment of it. Now that’s Byronic.

I do worry that the place could never live up to what it is in my head. And I fear that no matter what, going there isn’t going to be revelatory or fantastic, or anything short of another step. But still. I feel beckoned. As if we were the only two singularities or pancreases in an otherwise empty universe. I am pulled.

It has been a while. A long while since I’ve written anything worth more than the space on my hard drive. I am out of practice. Tired. Overtalked. Sluggish. Sick. So please, ignore the rust. This needs to see the light of day because lord knows I can’t.

Soon, I hope to remember how to put words in the right order again. But until then. I’ll leave you with this.

Have the best rest of your week as you can, and as always, thanks for reading.

-Connor