(no subject)
Sep. 19th, 2004 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynhefar"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
When I was younger I was absolutely convinced that what I really wanted to do with my life was buy a big chunk of woodland, build a log cabin and live there. I would grow or catch or hunt my own food, sew my own clothes and wash them in a stream. I would learn pottery, and make my own dishes and bowls. I would learn grass-weaving, and weave my own baskets. And I would carve animals out of wood and sell them, and the baskets, and the pottery, and any extra vegetables from my garden for money to buy books and lamp oil and cloth, those being the only things I would not make for myself.
And maybe it was a foolish dream, possible perhaps in the time of Thoreau, but impractical in our own time, as so many people have reminded me. I think perhaps the reason I have avoided reading Walden until this is because I knew it would rekindle that dream in me. And it has. I long for the woods, for solitude. I long to take what nature has given and shape it in my hands to something useful, no matter how simple. There is a satisfaction in the fashioning of a clay bowl or a wooden pipe that far exceeds the satisfaction of money earned or goods bought, or even of books read.
And so I sit here at my underground desk in the claustrophobic library, with the garish neon lights and the mechanical sounds of the elevator and the photocopier and the students at the computers typing. And I slouch under the weight of the building above me, of my own regrets, and of the knowledge that were I to die now, I would indeed discover that I had not lived.
When I was younger I was absolutely convinced that what I really wanted to do with my life was buy a big chunk of woodland, build a log cabin and live there. I would grow or catch or hunt my own food, sew my own clothes and wash them in a stream. I would learn pottery, and make my own dishes and bowls. I would learn grass-weaving, and weave my own baskets. And I would carve animals out of wood and sell them, and the baskets, and the pottery, and any extra vegetables from my garden for money to buy books and lamp oil and cloth, those being the only things I would not make for myself.
And maybe it was a foolish dream, possible perhaps in the time of Thoreau, but impractical in our own time, as so many people have reminded me. I think perhaps the reason I have avoided reading Walden until this is because I knew it would rekindle that dream in me. And it has. I long for the woods, for solitude. I long to take what nature has given and shape it in my hands to something useful, no matter how simple. There is a satisfaction in the fashioning of a clay bowl or a wooden pipe that far exceeds the satisfaction of money earned or goods bought, or even of books read.
And so I sit here at my underground desk in the claustrophobic library, with the garish neon lights and the mechanical sounds of the elevator and the photocopier and the students at the computers typing. And I slouch under the weight of the building above me, of my own regrets, and of the knowledge that were I to die now, I would indeed discover that I had not lived.
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Date: 2004-09-19 11:48 am (UTC)My job is called system engineering. Modern.
I bought a house on four-ish acres of land. I am slowly rebuilding it with my own hands. Modern materials, though, store-bought. But satisfying. And the house has most of the modern conveniences.
Our family has a lakeside cottage. No electricity, no running water. Plenty of fish in the lake, plenty of berry in the woods around. To spend a week there is very satisfying.
Not the Thoreuan life, but enough to shake me a little closer to real life to withstand the modern environment again.
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Date: 2004-09-19 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 11:55 am (UTC)And he tended to eat Sunday dinner with the Emersons.
But I still adore him. I kind of missing teaching American literature and Thoreau -- and Emerson also. I've given Ian part of Emerson's 'Nature'; he loved it.
And you have lived. There is more you want to do, but you indeed have lived. If nothing else, the love you have for fellow human beings, for our world etc. demonstrates that to me.
Ian has a copy of Walden. He wants to read it for very obvious reasons, and I know that when he finally gets around to it, he will love it. One of the reasons we live where we do is so we can go into the woods. But lately, the way his work has been, it hasn't given us much time for that. Next Sunday, we're to go mushroom picking in the forest with friends. We'll have to start earlier than planned since he must be at Heathrow Sunday night for a work-related flight.
But the woods are there -- for when you can get to them. And they are in your mind's eye, where you can escape to in those moments of wordly insanity.
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Date: 2004-09-19 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 12:12 pm (UTC)Last year on Boxing Day, Ian, our friend Chris (she came down for Xmas dinner with us and stayed two nights) and I drove up into the forest. I think we both wrote about it last year. We found a place to park and just started walking. It started raining on our hike back, and we were soaked and freezing. We warmed up a little in the car, but when we reached home, we changed clothing and Ian made us cocoa from Godiva chocolate.
It was a wonderful day. :) I think we all were rejuvenated by walking in the cold rain.
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Date: 2004-09-19 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 12:34 pm (UTC)I'm sorry you feel that you have not lived...what a terrible, desolate place to be in....
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Date: 2004-09-19 12:45 pm (UTC)