VII. I love naming landmarks along Walden’s shoreand using them to mark distances while swimming.   Each spring the shoreline changes. The height of the water fluctuates. One year, it was so high, it covered most of the beaches. Another year, the water was so low, there was a “wide margin” of sand all the way around the pond and you could walk all the way around on the sand. There are many rock formations along the shore – one, staircase-like, was a point of entry into the pond a friend and I called The Spot. As we swam along the shore, we passed The Lizard (branches in the water), The Love Knot (intertwined trees) and The Silverbush (a bush always glistening in the sunlight). In recent years, I’ve named The Lip of the Bowl (the end of an arc of shoreline), The Molar (a boulder) and another boulder has been dubbed Larry by a new friend swimming at Walden for the first time. Naming landmarks along the shore creates a personal connection to them, and as the shoreline changes from year to year, new naming opportunities appear.  

VIII. I love my parking pass. I’m a senior citizen so I’ve had a free parking pass to Walden for many years.   I feel privileged not to have to pay to park. I keep my pass in my glove compartment and I love to take it out and display it on my dashboard every time I visit. Sometimes, I forget to take it out, but I’ve never been ticketed by the park rangers. Just lucky I guess!

IX. I love the facsimile of Thoreau’s cabin. Adjacent to the parking lot is a life-size facsimile of the cabin in which Thoreau conducted his “experiment in living.” It has a desk and chair, a bed, a table, two other chairs, a fireplace and a box for firewood. There’s no dresser or closet. It’s very simple and embodies Thoreau’s views about how life should be lived. There’s no doormat either because, as Thoreau explains in his book, he doesn’t want to waste time cleaning it, time that could be better spent living deliberately.

X. I love making swim season last as long as possible. I try to get in the water before Memorial Day and then I see how deep into October I can comfortably swim before the water’s too cold. I can usually make it into the middle of the month. I’ve learned how to enter the water at either end of the season. I walk steadily into the water without hesitation until I’m in waist-deep, and then I dive in. The water feels cold for a minute or so before I get adjusted. “You gotta move” a song lyric advises, and that is the secret to starting your swim. Walk in, don’t dawdle, dive, get your head and whole body under, then come up, whoop “Woo!” and start stroking. In a minute, you and the water will be one.

XI. I love that Walden is alive. In his book, Thoreau details the changes he observes at Walden as the seasons progress – summer, fall, winter, spring. When it’s spring at last, winter thaws and rivulets of water appear, coursing along the shoulders of the shore, revealing Walden’s circulatory system. The ice on the pond cracks and groans, and over the years, Thoreau recorded the dates he first heard those loud sounds. To experience Walden as Thoreau did, deliberately and mindfully, is to understand why he called it “Earth’s Eye” and to believe that Walden is a living, breathing being.

XII. I love that Walden is connected to the entire planet. In the 19^th century, ice from Walden was harvested and shipped all over the globe to provide refrigeration. Thoreau invokes the water cycle to fortify this concept. Water from Walden evaporates, is carried skyward, and then taken by clouds all over the world, where it will fall as rain in places as far away as the Ganges River in India.

XIII. I love that Walden is all about connection. Through Walden, I am connected to far-flung locations on our planet. I am connected to the shoreline and the floor of the pond, to the yellow pollen, to the cairns, to the water, to the writing and philosophy of one of America’s greatest authors and to his experiment in living. I am a part of Walden and Walden is a part of me. It’s cosmic.