Walden Chapters pt. 2

Lake Michigan, ten minutes away from my home (definitely taken for granted.)

Keeping up with his pattern, Thoreau sticks to talking about precisely what each chapter is named after. In The Ponds he discusses his time spent at the ponds, specifically of course, Walden pond. He describes this pond in great detail, with admiration and awe in his tone. I love the way he describes the variations in the color of water; How dependent on the environment, the angle at which you are to it, the amount of water there is. To hear it described so in depth makes his wonder infectious to the reader. I can't help but think of how, being from Michigan, water is something I've always sort of taken for granted. Then you meet people from Arizona and you're like "Where do you swim?" Which brings to mind our conversations in class about desert landscapes being unsustainable for human living, and how our location next to such a large supply of fresh water could be potentially very interesting in our new Eaarth.

One section that I particularly enjoyed in The Pond in Winter, although a little hard to follow, was when he uses the pond/bodies of water in general
to draw parallels and make comparisons with how we learn things about another person. "It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them." He talks about how telling the character of water is the same as telling the character of an individual.

In Spring he talks first of the season's effects on Walden, and then more broadly about the season itself. He describes the woods in the springtime, and why the season appeals to him. I like how he captures the feeling of eagerly searching for the first sign of spring. This year, I feel that that's not the case. But my whole childhood, I remember growing excited at the lengthening of days, excited to hear a bird singing, excited even to see the sun come out and melt away some of the grey.

I'll end on the same note that Thoreau does with Spring-- how true it is that we depend upon nature. More and more we forget this. But I believe the time is coming soon when we'll be forced to remember.