Today my roommate and I took the commuter train up to Concord, where we originally intended to meander down to Walden Pond and spend some quality time with nature and the transcendentalists.
However, upon arriving in Concord, we decided to stop by and see Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where many of the famous literary Concord folks are buried. And we got lost in that thar graveyeard. For a really long time. And because the temperature was hovering somewhere in the high 80s and humidity was brewing somewhere around 90% (or so it felt) by the time we did finally find said famous literary folks we were pretty worn out and, like, seriously drenched. Because our bodies have not yet learned that sweating in a high humidity situation is Not Effective.
Afterwards we walked over to Orchard House, where we took a tour of the Alcott home and I fanned myself a great deal and affected nonchalance about my really wet shirt.
Then, because we decided that Walden Pond was just not an option (Because of weather. And our sore feet. And tired legs.) we decided to try to make the next train back to Boston. And just barely made it. Literally, they had to wait for us to board. Kind of funny, actually.
Um.
So...where was I going with this?
Ahyes. I despise my sweating self. Seriously. I wish my pores would get a clue. But until they do, I think I'll restrict myself entirely to air-conditioned areas any time the temperature is higher than, say, 79 or so. And I'm sure everyone around me will thank me for it too.
4 comments:
It's true-- humidity adds a whole new element to summertime sweating. No fun at all.
But lucky you! Despite the heat, your Concord trip sounds like it was fun. I've always wanted to roam around Concord like I was a transcendentalist or something.
I visited Walden Pond on a rainy day when grey mist hung low over it like a curtain. My family, rather uninterested in the place, humored me in stopping there. They ate lunch in the parking lot and meandered down to the beach (which is less touristy now than when E. B. White described it in his essays) while I took a path through the drippy woods alongside the lake. I do not know whether it is always that placid or if it was muted by the mist.
Thoreau's home was marked by posts outlining its small (probable) boundaries, and a cairn of rocks left by those who wanted to put a thing there to make themselves a part of the man who scorned things.
I don't know what I think of Walden--I never really have. It is sometimes beautiful and sometimes so pretentiously full of itself and full of Henry David Thoreau (he went by David) that it chokes in my craw.
I envied him his home site that day. He really didn't live there long but it is his.
I can't remember if I left a rock or not.
It was great fun, Lindsay. I just wish my sweating had kind of kept out of the 'good times' equation. But it was really cool to walk where the Alcotts had lived and see Emerson's house. Lovely stuff, really.
And Cathy, beautifully put. I think you need to have a blog simply because I would love to read what you would write. (However, I know that with two small children this is not necessarily practical for you. But I can still hope. :))
Amen to the Cathy-blog wish. Ironic - she was the one who encouraged me to start mine.
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