On Walden Pond

The third time is the charm in reading, as it seems to be in so many other aspects of life.

I've just begun my third trip through Thoreau's Walden, and this time, only ten pages in, it already feels like a long-lost friend I'm rediscovering.

The last time I read it was far too many years ago to count, and like the first time, was required reading.

This time is different. I've chosen to read it for a few of reasons:

1. It seems a natural extentsion of where my current interests lie, as I've also reconnected with Frost and Dickinson and early works of English poetry.

2. The longer I stay in Oklahoma, the more I long for someplace else.

3. It was free in the Kindle store.

And so I've plunged head-long into it again, and find myself discovering meaning where there was none (or very little) before.

Perhaps Walden, and books of its ilk, are best read when one has acquired the age and experience to appreciate it?

As a junior in a semi-rural high school who lived on ten acres of remote farmland, I was unimpressed.

But now, having spent the better part of nearly twenty years living in the rural-urban wasteland of Tulsa, Oklahoma, I feel myself longing for something more, something different...if I had a soul, it would be crying out for relief from the daily frustrations of the life I've created for myself here.

And how attractive the idea of packing up and moving away from it all! Of course, Thoreau's "roughing it" was hardly that - two miles from town, close enough to hear the train whistle, et. al. - but it's the very idea of stripping away the pretenses of civilization and living just for the sake of living that I find most attractive about it.

So I look forward to reconnecting with Thoreau's special brand of Transcendalism, looking the other way during his smug musings on the shortcomings of others, and letting his words surround me, searching for new meanings to words written over 150 years ago.