How can a place so crowded and noisy also be a place of such peace and solace? Hundreds of thousands visit Walden Pond each year, overflowing the parking lots to discover the pond and woods made famous by Henry David Thoreau.
First-timers amble to the end of the pond to meditate on the pile of rocks where Thoreau’s modest cabin once stood. Regular visitors walk the 1.9-mile trail circling the pond, admiring the water views. Families line the shores with their picnics, children splashing and laughing in the water. Canoers, kayakers, stand-up boarders, and fishermen are out as well, wending and lolling about the pond. A few folks will be reading…even occasionally reading Walden, but mostly Walden Pond is an active, often noisy place far, far removed from the hidden, quiet escape where Thoreau weathered the seasons in solitude and penned his seminal work.
And yet, amidst all this, even on the busiest days, there is a place where people can escape the crowd and get lost in their thoughts. Where is this place? IN the water, beyond the shores, beyond the ropes of the guarded swimming area and extending the entire length and width of the pond. A place defined by the bobbing and weaving orange and yellow buoys; the safety buoys worn by the open-water swimmers of Walden Pond. They are a lucky lot who enjoy this special place-within-a-place.
Yes, these swimmers add to the overall cacophony of Walden. Once they begin their swims, however, they are quiet, solitary figures on their own journeys. Submerged head and splashing strokes drown out all but one’s own thoughts, and the act of swimming becomes a metronomic trance, an experience that encourages the kind of reflection and introspection that Henry David Thoreau encouraged in his writing. And thus, an experience that begins as swimming becomes Swimming with Thoreau.
Ask these swimmers about their experience and they will share different stories of how and why and when, but all will agree on the inner quiet and peace that open-water swimming affords, even in such a busy place. The late Maury Eldredge of Lincoln spoke to this inner quiet:
“Swimming is a meditation on the fluid grace of movement. Our bodies float freely. Our strength, meeting little resistance, is as powerful or relaxed as we wish. For our minds, it is a meditation on being. Thoughts dissolve, one after another, absorbed in the waters as the blue sky, the green of pine and oak, perhaps a cotton ball of white cloud, encompass our consciousness.”
Or, as Mary Roberts, of Carlisle, shares,
“Each swim in Walden Pond heightens my awareness. I see colors more vividly. I perceive subtle details in the landscape. I connect easily with others. I am at peace. Thoreau reminds us, ’We are nothing without an honest embrace of the natural world.’ Walden Pond’s majesty has become part of my being.”
And, in the words of Nathaniel Davis, a swimmer visiting from Pennsylvania:
“I was swimming to feel and remember everything I could. The chill, the sun, the changing autumn leaves, life and breath and movement and the Creator’s glory.”
Certainly, Walden Pond cannot be claimed by any one person or group of people as their own. Everyone who comes to Walden Pond has their own experience and impressions. However, the open-water swimmers of Walden Pond offer a unique perspective born of swimming, refreshed by the entirety of the pond waters, and inspired by the thoughts of Henry David Thoreau.
