Just sitting here. Enjoying the quiet. Reflecting.
A few years ago, we spent a day on Walden Pond. It was a clear and crisp autumn day and one I will always remember. We arrived early, having heard that while there was plenty of room around Walden, the parking lot was small. Intentionally small, I think, to control the number of people visiting Walden Pond. We came with sandwiches and such from a deli in Concord and sat on steps, eating, watching a few canoeists, swimmers braving the chilly water, an elderly couple sitting in camp chairs reading, an artist sketching . . . people, living on purpose.
From the moment I first read Thoreau’s Walden in American Literature class in high school, I wanted to see Walden Pond. I always knew I would love it just not how much I would. Have you ever had that experience? Thoreau’s quote says it best:
If one advances confidently in the direction of one’s dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Did you know that Frederick Tudor, The Ice King, devised a way to harvest ice and became a very wealthy man? Ice was taken from Walden Pond to use aboard ships to keep food cold on the journey to the tropics. Frederick Tudor was the great grandfather of Tasha Tudor, an illustrator whose books and gardens and life I so admire.
Do you remember the scene in the Winona Ryder film version of Little Women where Jo and Laurie go ice skating and Amy falls through the ice in the pond? That was a depiction of Walden Pond. Orchard House, where Alcott wrote Little Women, is within walking distance from the pond.
The Alcotts were friends of Thoreau and there is speculation that Louisa May had at least a girlhood crush on him. They, along with Emerson and Hawthorne and others, are all buried in the same cemetery, near each other, in a section noted for the number of writers buried there.
Ah, but my thoughts wander today, like the path at Walden, when I meant to wax poetic and dream awhile of advancing confidently toward my dreams.
Lifeonthecutoff's Blog 
Oh, what a beautiful photograph! I long to go to Walden pond. In fact, I am going to look at places to stay there right now! And I love that quote – so meaningful and inspiring.
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Thank you, Rachel. I hope you can go there. Remember, Alcott, Emerson, the Manse/Minuteman Park are all very close. There is a commemoration at Minuteman for the British soldiers that died there when the Revolutionary War started. Hawthorne lived in the Manse and wrote about it. They are right next to each other. Can you tell this is one of my favorite places?
I’ve found this particular quote so relevant in my life at so many times. Thoreau, of course, has many.
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Missing Walden Pond was one of my regrets about our trip to that area of the country, but I love your picture of it.
Just before I sat down to work on my computer the picture I took of Hawthorne’s gravestone scrolled by on my computer screen.
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I know, Bev, but, you got to visit Emerson’s house and we didn’t. I almost posted the picture I took of Hawthorne’s stone. It was a little blurry and didn’t quite fit the text, so, I didn’t.
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You know so much about Walden Pond, very interesting. I like how you described the people there….who were living life on purpose. Simple, yet powerful.
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Thank you, Jennifer – and there is so much more I don’t know. I appreciate your kind words and wish you could have seen Walden Pond when you were in Boston. Then, again, you saw the Kennedy Library and I didn’t.
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I recently came across a quote from Anatole France ‘If the path be beautiful let us not ask where it leads” – I like it that your thoughts meander down different paths giving us so much to look at or think about Penny; and I would love to wander on the paths around Walden Pond too.
Ah yes Tasha Tudor – how I would like one of her books.
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What a wonderful quote, Marilyn! Thank you. Tom and I had such a beautiful day at Walden Pond. I wish I could share it with the whole world.
I just love Tasha Tudor. I saw her onetime in Vermont. I’ll have to write about it someday. I treasure her books.
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This is absolutely beautiful Penny. You have added lots of information that I will be following up. Thoreau’s quote is wonderful. Walden pond looks like a dream to me. I will wander it thus.
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Thank you, Joan. I think the teacher in me was coming out and I wanted to challenge my class. ha! We were blessed with the most beautiful of days and we often speak of its beauty. Thoreau is really credited here with the beginning of the environmentalist movement so very long ago. Have fun wandering.
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I love your photos of Walden Pond. Earlier this week we were on Prairie Lake which is near our home. It was so beautiful. I was way too busy enjoying the fall colors, reflections, birds, etc. to pay much attention to fishing. I love the way you can connect one thing to another.You go from Walden Pond to Tasha Tudor and from there to the Alcotts, Emerson, and Hawthorne. All I can add is Walden Pond …..sigh.
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Thank you, Janet. Some day I will have to see your Prairie Lake. You have mentioned it before and I am sure it is quite beautiful. Sometimes that is just what we need to do. Simply enjoy. I get busy with my camera and catch myself and put it down so I can be in the moment at times. You would love Walden Pond.
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What a wonderful post, from across the world! I have learnt so much. I’m off to read Thoreau’s book, and look at two biographies, his and Louisa May Alcott: but most of all, to put this on my list of destinations if ever I return to your part of the world.
Your photographs are beautiful.
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Thank you, Kate. Isn’t it grand that we can learn so much from each other through these things we call “blogs”? Thoreau built a little cabin at Walden and lived there and wrote for a year. Much of what he wrote and the life he aimed to live are credited as the beginning of the environmentalist movement. If you can get it there, the Reisen biography, new last year, is excellent on Alcott.
I appreciated your post today beyond measure.
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I read On Walden Pond for the first time this spring and also longed to see the location that prompted such profound inner reflection. The fall photo is the perfect visual image of this special place.
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It is such an idyllic spot, Molly, and so inspiring the walk around the pone, which was much bigger than I imagined, and climb to the spot where Thoreau lived such a short time for such a big legacy. His cabin was placed strategically to get such a magnificent view.
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[…] telling of our autumn sojourn a few years ago to Massachusetts and Walden Pond, which I wrote about here. It was a wonderful trip, made even more so by an afternoon lunch on Walden Pond and a walk through […]
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[…] moments was on a fine October day, ten or so years ago, at Walden Pond. You can read about it here. On that remarkable day, Tom and I walked and talked and didn’t talk, seeing the original […]
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