One of my father’s favorite books was Walden by Henry David Thoreau. He loved Thoreau’s immersion in the natural world and his emphasis on a simple life. Recently, when I was watching a PBS documentary on Thoreau and his time living alone in the woods at Walden Pond, I remembered my childhood in Illinois and how my dad had created his own version of Walden on the five acres where my parents built a house nine years before I was born. The land had a number of old oak trees and a couple of streams running through it but was otherwise mainly open fields. By the time I was a young child playing there, my dad and mom had planted shade trees, evergreens, bushes, vegetable and flower gardens, a fruit orchard, and berry patches. The vibrant beauty of Nature surrounded me every day. Without realizing it, I was growing up immersed in Walden consciousness.

“Simplify, simplify, simplify,” my dad would often quote Thoreau. No wonder I inherited an aversion to complications and clutter—and a love of Nature’s beautiful simplicity. When I read Walden in college, it all came together for me. Thoreau’s writing, as well as that of other Transcendentalists like Emerson, aligned with my heart and soul. Thoreau’s small wooden cabin in the forest by Walden Pond seemed to call to me. A number of years later, I moved to Massachusetts, and Walden became a special sanctuary for me where I often walked the trails and gazed at the trees, water, and sky. In any season, it radiated peace and tranquility. It was as if Thoreau’s solitary spirit watched over and protected it.

When my parents flew from Chicago to Boston to visit me, two dear friends drove us out to Walden so that my dad could see it in person. It was a special moment for all of us because we knew how greatly he admired Thoreau and his philosophy. My father continued to plant mini-Waldens in other Illinois locations where my parents lived in later years. And I too have created “Waldens” in the various backyards (or porches) of houses where I have had an apartment.

Currently, my partner Anne and I live in a condo which faces a woods thick with deciduous trees and evergreens. Bird song fills the air when I open our deck doors at sunrise, and we hear spring peepers or summer crickets trilling after dark. Walden once again synchronistically surrounds me, the perfect circle of a lifetime. Early in my life, I learned that the wonders of the Earth are ever-present; every day I see them wherever I live. I am deeply grateful to Thoreau, my dad, and all those magical years of “growing up Walden.”
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Artwork above: “Thoreau’s View,” by Anne Katzeff