Tracking Thoreau through Concord

There are very few heroes who can stand the test of time, whose moral arc didn't have to "evolve" but was just there all along. Thoreau was certainly one of those. While he had a complicated relationship with Native Americans it was mostly one of respect and admiration. A staunch abolitionist who not only believed in abolishing slavery but also in racial equality his courage to take a stance even if that meant standing alone was inspiring. Thoreau and Gandhi had a major similarity - they believed in personal liberation as much as in political liberation. It is not enough to speak up for political causes (something that everyone seems to do on twitter) but also focus on personal growth (something most of us don't seem to have an interest in or the time for). 

After dropping our daughter off at college I decided that tracing Thoreau's steps through Concord was one way to deal with the separation. The only tenet of Transcendentalism one has to adhere to is to enjoy walking outdoors. Given that I meet that criteria and am unabashedly a fan of Thoreau I think I can call myself a Transcendentalist. So like a true follower I criss-crossed the town of Concord on foot trying to travel back in time and trace my hero's footsteps. Here it is.

I began my journey at Walden - a book I re-read every few years - the pond which I visited for the third time. At the outset I want to clear up a common misconception about Thoreau's 2 years, 2 months, 2 days at Walden. He didn't claim to be a hermit. He was not a misanthrope. Concord's main street symbolized to him a very linear, unexamined life. One went to school, gets to Harvard, graduates with a job, makes money, settles down in marriage, makes more money for the future generations and hob nobs with like-minded people. Stepping away a few miles from the Main street and living in a shack in the woods was his way of breaking the linearity and taking the time to examine his life. So coming home to a Sunday dinner or getting his clothes washed at home were not acts of hypocrisy that took away from his experiment at Walden. With that out of the way, here is a replica of his cabin in the woods

The actual location is marked by a stone cairn (Alcott's way of honoring his dear friend)

 

The view from his cabin today looks like this

Here I must give a shout-out to my SIL who took me to Walden for the first time back in the winter of 2010. This was my third visit, the last two being in the summer months. She recommends I make it out there during the fall, and I am hoping I can do it.

Now that Walden was done, I went around looking for signs of Thoreau within the town of Concord. I first went to the Concord Museum and sure enough there were a lot of artifacts that gave me joy and goosebumps. Here are a few

A letter from Frederick Douglass to Thoreau's sister Helen who was very active in the AntiSlavery society. Douglass was a frequent guest at the Thoreau's and the Thoreau home was a stop on the underground railroad. Thoreau, besides speaking out against slavery and in support of John Brown, privately drove at least a couple of escaped slaves and put them on a train to Canada. He was also known to have made shoes for runaways.

The famous green desk that he wrote in. It graced his cabin at Walden and later the attic in his house. Simple, no-nonsense desk just like the writer.

After DaVinci, Thoreau was the ultimate renaissance man. His musical ability with the flute was well known that Emerson would make him bring it to his gatherings to entertain folks. Below is the Aeolian Harp that he built

The Thoreau family made its money by making top notch pencils. Thoreau brought his engineering mind to the process and had a special technique for grinding the graphite. How many authors can claim to have also made the tool they used to write with?

His bed, walking stick and spyglass at Walden and also the rocking chair (one of 3 chairs in Walden). One chair for solitude, two for company, three for society was all he needed. 

 His friend Cholmondeley gifted him numerous books on Indian philosophy. Thoreau was well-read and was the first in the town of Concord to get his hands on Darwin's Origin of Species.

Thoreau's largest source of income was from surveying. His surveys of Walden pond are known for their accuracy. 

These were some of the artifacts preserved in the museum. I now set out to look for Thoreau by criss-crossing Concord. Luckily I met a guide who shared a similar liking for Thoreau and kindly pointed out to me important landmarks within the town.

The famous Colonial Inn of Concord has sections of the building dating back to 1716. This particular corner was once a home of the Thoreaus and they also had their pencil workshop here. 

The Masonic temple at Concord once was the site of the school that Thoreau taught in right after graduating from Harvard. When forced to inflict corporal punishment on his students, he complied just once. But the following morning he quit in protest!

This was the site of the famous prison where Thoreau was held for refusing to pay poll taxes to a Government that sanctioned slavery and went to war with Mexico. Gandhi had independently come up with his Satyagraha but later read Thoreau and was inspired by his writings.

This is the garden outside the Old Manse that Thoreau and Concord's African American resident John Garrison raised together for Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sophia when they moved to Concord from Salem. Today the garden is still maintained and the three sisters are grown (corn, beans and squash) along with sunflowers.

This is the historic bell of the town that was rung on numerous important occasions. Thoreau rang this bell when Emerson stepped up to speak against slavery. Emerson needed some time for his views to "evolve" and Thoreau and the women of the Antislavery society of Concord were instrumental in nudging Emerson.

This is Emerson's mansion. Thoreau was frequently a guest at this home and when Emerson went on a speaking tour of the continent, Emerson's wife requested that Thoreau move in with them to help her raise the kids and maintain the house. Tutor, gardener, handyman, playmate for the kids - all rolled into one, Thoreau packed up from Walden and moved in here because of that request.

For my final stop I chose Sleepy Hollow. Thoreau designed and built the pond in the cemetery and many years after he died his grave was moved to the Author's Ridge section of Sleepy Hollow.

Surrounded by pines the Thoreaus are all remembered in this cemetery. He lies here with his beloved brother and his two brave sisters and his parents.

Many folks leave pencils at the graves in Author's Ridge. I didn't want to. I only had a crumpled flower and a pine cone with me. So I laid those on his grave. His gravestone is as simple as he was in his life. I sat in silence on a nearby bench. I could hear him say "Simplify, Simplify, Simplify." He made it look so easy. Walking all day in Concord I could see the contrast between an examined vs an un-examined life a life of courage vs a life that just goes through the motions. I have followed a linear path all my life as it was just too easy to do. I left Concord with a bit more inspiration to be more deliberate. How long the effect will last I don't know. It's one of the reasons I re-read Walden.

It was time to go and I asked my husband to drive by 255 Main Street, the house in which he died. Apparently it was sold for a cool $2.5M! I could see Thoreau shaking his head.

Learning to Become a Water Net

 "Parenting is easy," remarked the pediatrician we were interviewing prior to the birth of our daughter. "You get through the first two months, the terrible twos, the teenage years and you are done!" he joked. This week after having dropped off our daughter at college, I can say maybe parenting is done, but being a parent is most certainly not done. We walked away feeling very happy and excited for her as she is going to a place she really wanted to and we hope it lives up to her expectations, but at the same time we are saddened as we returned to our empty nest. Her old jacket lying on the floor (never hung up) caused a mini-flutter within me and I was expecting to hear her hollering "Mom! Where is my [insert whatever object comes to your mind]?." While I still expect a few hollering texts from across the country over the next few weeks as she settles down into a routine, it is not going to be the same, and I will miss the hollering from across the room.

I don't know which one was more nerve-wracking - bringing her home after birth or dropping her off a couple of thousand miles away for college. In the former case, the fear of being entirely responsible for a helpless new babe was at times terrifying. In the latter, accepting that I am no longer responsible for her and she has to take charge of her own reins is going to take some time for me to get used to. Don't get me wrong, we are lucky to have a child who is very reasonable, responsible, with great instincts and intuition. She has striven to remain authentic throughout her entire 18 years even if that meant swimming against the current most of the time, a quality that I admire in her the most.

So while I have no doubts that she is well-equipped for this solo-flight I will miss having a ringside view to this journey. I know that she will keep us in the loop but I will miss our daily evening walk when she would give me the run down of her day or sometimes brainstorm ideas for a piece she was writing.

She was late to the world of mobile phones, getting one only towards the end of her 8th grade. Maybe that's why she enjoys conversations and is a terrible texter - a characteristic that we loved when she lived with us and might come back to bite us now. She also never once asked us for our Netflix password because she rarely watched TV by herself. I have watched every show with her from My Little Pony, Littelest Pet Shop, Dragons Race to the Edge, Ninjago, when she was little all the way to the latest seasons of The Dragon Prince and Witcher, this summer. From Endeavor to Only Murders in the Building  half the fun of watching these shows was us figuring out together who the murderer could be. Every summer we would watch Avatar the Last Airbender from start to finish and still find things to discuss about the show. These past few years of high school meant we didn't have as much time as we would have liked to play board games together but we made the best of this summer and I think she is going to find newer, sharper companions than her old mom to match up against.

Yes I am realizing that I am selfishly moaning the loss of a way of life for me that has become a pattern these past 18 years. But it's been only 4 days and it is going to take time for both of us to get into new routines. One of the advantages of a long distance relationship is that I will be physically restricted from problem-solving for her - a tendency of mine that she has often pointed out as not being very helpful. Many times she has asked me to just listen and not jump to problem-solving. So I am going to put a positive spin on the distance of separation and the time zone difference and say it is going to help me practice listening when she is venting instead of trying to jump the gun. 

Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us that fortunately our daughters are not our clones and we don't have to disintegrate to set them free. Instead she suggests we think of ourselves as water-nets. She says "A fish net catches fish, a bug net catches bug. But a water net catches nothing ... Mothering is like that, a net of living threads to lovingly encircle what it cannot possibly hold, what will eventually move through it." We are empty-nesters as of today, but that is an image that is not very helpful to me. So from now on if anyone asks me how it feels I am going to say I am not an empty-nester but just a novice water-net.