26 July 2009

Walden Pond

On Monday last I biked to Walden Pond, ran around it for no apparent reason, and biked home. Biking to Walden Pond is an activity I have performed before and one I hope to make a Summer tradition. Walden Pond is in my top five Massachusetts destinations. It is a serene outdoorsman’s palace- just a few hundred feet from a major highway and still eons away from stifling pressures and inconsequential stresses. The bike route from my house to said destination is very hilly both ways, but after seven miles the road enters a pastoral phase with the hills devolving into an afterthought. Some wicked and conniving men (not really, well, maybe) tried to develop some condominiums around the pond a number of years ago (that number has long since been forgotten) but the community fought back with a voracious aptitude and the plans were quelched. As a result the pond remains a haven and sanctuary for peace-dwellers, sunbathers, swimmers, crocodiles (cocodrillos) and the Hmong people of Laos and Cambodia. I love Walden Pond for all of those reasons. I love the trees that keep the water contained, despite the water's truculent erosion tactics; I love the clean and clear aqua pure that redefines the body of water known as 'Pond' from a scrappy frog-quarium to an open-topped cenote; I love the halcyon history that extends incorruptibly into the present; and I love the path-like aisles that bend through the trees unsteadily. Heading out to Walden Pond by human locomotion is a Summer treat indeed. It makes for a terrific biatholon. Come visit me and we will go 'to live deliberately.'

7 comments:

Cat said...

I've never been to Walden Pond, but if it's half as good as you make it sound, I think I'd fall in love with it immediately. And that's what I have to say about that.

Lyndsi Shae* said...

The famous Walden Pond??
I forgot that was even experiencable.
Jealoussss.

fuck you blogger said...

I need a place like that here in Provo. And this was very well written, Wallace! :)

Unknown said...

i'm sold.
i'll be heading off to mass as soon as jetblue has a slc-boston flight for cheap, just to visit the pond.
also, i love cambodians, so i think we'll be a perfect fit (me and the pond, duh).

Landen said...

Um... Missing New England! Not that I am even from there, but maybe I should have been! Enjoy it for me, will you? Thanks:)

Jessica said...

wallace!
I'm kind of jealous about this place--it reminded me of how I miss Hyde Park.

P.S. I would just like to point out that the 5 comments above mine were all written by girls. And that's all I'll say.

Unknown said...

I'm so jealous of you! ok, I am in love with Walden Pond also. I really think that there is something so magical about it! I love going at night and swimming when all the stars are out, freakin incredible. Wow, I miss Boston. Walden is definitely on my top 5 list to!