When Henry David Thoreau moved to a little cabin next to Walden Pond, he famously recalled: “I went to woods because I wish 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.” … If there is a more English-major-way to start a snapshot about leaving the Harvard bubble, I dare you to find it. While I don’t know if I can totally compare myself to Thoreau, as I didn’t make this trip alone and spent some of it on my phone (though some, maybe just me, would argue that finding out if Walden has a Snapchat geofilter would be an essential fact of life), I do think this captures how I feel about getting away from campus sometimes.
I don’t necessarily consider myself someone who loooves nature. In fact, I spent some of my time at that beautiful pond up there making sweeping gestures with my arms and yelling “NATURE!” in a way that I thought was ironic and humorous but really just scared all the nice people taking normal nature walks. But, if I think about it, I’ve always loved the escape. When I was in high school and got frustrated or anxious about something (in that regular, everyday way that happens when you are fifteen and everything is dumb), my beautiful, patient mother would drive me to the ocean, forty-five minutes away from our house, so I could just sit on the sand and talk to the water. That sounds way more insane now that I’m typing it out but it’s fine we’re all over it. Basically, it was helpful for me to look at the horizon, hear the waves (or the whimpers of my dog who would come along if we went in the off-season and consistently forgets that salt water is not tasty), and just throw my questions and my problems out there. So, maybe if you ask me what I want to do this weekend, my first answer won’t always be hiking/camping/being outdoors in any form, but there has always been a part of me that likes just getting out there.
I took the above picture (plus a ton of snapchats — update: Walden does not have a geofilter, RUDE) when I went on a quick, spontaneous trip to Walden right before classes started this semester. My friend Micah (hi, Micah!) was back from Minnesota and had rented a car a day early for a trip he was taking, so we had more options about where to catch up than somewhere in the Square. He picked me up outside Mather, and we drove around aimlessly for ten minutes (guys MIT’s campus has some WEIRD buildings hiding back there), before we realize we both actually wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t MIT’s campus. We settled on Walden for no discernable reason, and started driving. I hadn’t been since I was a kid but guys — if you’re looking for a day trip off-campus, this is the spot. It’s gorgeous and calm, and just far enough away from Cambridge that you forget about your thesis or your paper or whatever non-humanities kids do (honestly, I don’t know).
So the next time you have a free afternoon, or need to call an afternoon free to make it through the next week of work and stay sane (an important category of afternoon to keep in your back pocket), try heading to Walden Pond. Thoreau loved it, I loved it despite lack of Snapchat amenities (and that’s saying something), and I know you will, too.