small town new england

Weekend before last Andrew and I trekked to Concord, MA (of Lexington & Concord). Home of Walden Pond and for two years two months and two days Henry David Thoreau, and Lousia May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson (wrote all that out because I just realized the insistence on middle names). It's only twenty miles from Boston but somehow it took us a few hours to get there. I liked being in a car on the East Coast again. It reminded me of the trips Stephen and I took freshman year to Vermont and Maine. The entrance to a completely different world is so seamless, from buildings to trees. I love driving along those narrow roads with stretches of green trees above and around. The trees arch over the road, so it's shady except for the way the sun makes it through the gaps between leaves, and it feels cozy and small, even as you're aware of the miles of pure woods beyond the bit of pavement you're on.



Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. Here's the reconstruction of his hut. I looked at it and it seemed simple enough. But I think, so many details could still be wrong. I'm sure he described his room quite thoroughly, enough to have the right furniture and items and probably even in the correct general vicinity of the room. But who knows what could've been different on a certain day or even all the time? What if he liked his chair tilted in a different direction? What if he didn't fold his blanket like that? What if that's not how many logs he liked in his fireplace? It seems little, but when that's all there is, it matters a little. I know the point was that possessions are insignificant, but it reminds me of the way King Lear declares, "Reason not the need." People always have needs beyond mere necessity; most of the time we're not aware of them because the line between need and desire is so blurry. For Thoreau, though, it was obvious; he saw what he needed to physically survive and what he didn't. But those other things--the way he arranged things, how he liked his bed made, the kind of view he received from his window--he needed them too.




We saw the Alcott and Emerson houses, from the outside mostly. When we were leaving the Alcott House it was pouring and we ran, sheltered underneath his jacket, across the road to our car. I've never been one to be saddened by the rain, but it's never made me particularly happy either, until various conversations and moments and sounds and experiences and sensations made me value the pitter-patter.



He spotted this sole flower, brightness amidst all green, lonely and defiant. Bittersweet, like that ivory-billed woodpecker that may or may not be the last of its kind. Are they aware, are they sad or are they proud? Like the rose in The Little Prince who thinks her worth lies in being the only one that exists. So distinct and apart from its surroundings, but somehow it defines everything else around it because it's the only thing you focus on.



Maybe it's because he's so separate from my daily life, but when I'm with him I feel like it's just us, like that single flower or those narrow roads. The world is as we are at that moment, lovely.