Even if you haven’t read anything by Henry David Thoreau, you’re probably familiar with some of his famous aphorisms:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.”

Thoreau is my kind of guy. I know Dickens is my guy, but a girl can have more than one guy, right? In terms of worldview, I have far more in common with Thoreau. While I love a lot of what he says (I don’t agree with everything), I find that I have to take my time when I read him. Although Walden and Civil Disobedience are relatively short, it took me more than a month to work my way through my Penguin Classics edition. Thoreau’s writing is dense, his paragraphs are long, and while his vocabulary isn’t overly difficult, it does take some rereading to make sure I understand what he’s saying. As the great Toni Morrison once said to Oprah, “That, my dear, is reading.” 

Something I never hear about Thoreau, but that I love about him, is his sense of humor. He’s actually quite funny. Really! He has a dry, ironic sense of humor and he slings his zingers with marked precision. He uses his sharp-edged humor to help make his point, and it works. 

These days I’m working my way through Thoreau’s essay “Autumnal Tints,” where he sings the praises of the red-orange trees that populate Massachusetts in October. 

Thoreau says, “How beautiful, when a whole tree is like one great scarlet fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if you look toward the sun! What more remarkable object can there be in the landscape? Visible for miles, too fair to be believed. If such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition to posterity, and get into the mythology at last.” And because the beauty of autumn is brought about by the seasonal death of the leaves, Thoreau says, “How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! They that soared so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach us how to die.”

Here, where I live in Southern Nevada, the weather is still hot and humid in the late afternoons when the dark-rimmed clouds roll in. Hence, my eagerness for autumn and cooler weather. At least the mornings these days are slightly cooler, so reading Thoreau outside seemed appropriate. I took my cat-eared paperback of Walden and Civil Disobedience outside so I could see the powder blue sky, the white fluffy clouds, the trees all around, and the Las Vegas valley below. For Thoreau, every natural thing was something to be admired. The attention he paid to Walden Pond, from the birds, to the depth of the pond, to the effects of the railroad that rumbled just a few miles from his makeshift cabin, was extraordinary. He structured the sections of Walden into the four seasons, and he explains in nearly scientific detail what life was like at Walden Pond in Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. His joy at watching the world changing around him is palpable. 

Right now, with no major writing project hanging over me, I’m allowing myself to slow down and notice the world that I’m usually too busy to see. The sad truth is, I lived in Las Vegas for years before I realized what beautiful sunsets we have here. One day I was driving home later than usual, as the sun was setting, and the sky was painted this gorgeous magenta, pink, and gold. So much of modern life is about productivity and keeping busy and always doing more. Even our leisure hours, we’re told, should be used to accomplish something; either that, or we waste our time away with mindless scrolling. When I think of how attached we are as a society to our devices, I think of Thoreau’s quote from Walden about how the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. We don’t need to see the scientific studies that show how our devices are subtracting form our lives, not adding to them.  

I happen to believe that the right books find us when we need them. I had this experience when I was finishing my Master’s degree in English. One of my committee members wanted an entire overhaul of one section, and there were only a few days before the deadline to submit my thesis if I wanted to graduate that spring. I remember wandering through the library stacks searching for one particular book. As I reached for the book I wanted, another book two shelves higher caught my eye. I pulled it out, read the back cover, and it looked promising so I checked it out. And that was the book I needed in order to make the revisions the professor wanted. 

Thoreau also showed up when I needed him. I had been meaning to reread Walden for some time, and I was pleased when I finally picked it up again. This time, Thoreau’s lessons struck home in a different way. His declarations about mindful awareness, material simplicity, and being true to your own heart struck a chord with me in a way it hadn’t before, but that’s probably because I’m at a different place in my life than I was the last time I read Thoreau. The last time, I was reading Thoreau with a teacher’s eye. This time, I read the book for myself, and I realized that I related to much of what he said because I too need to “Simplify! Simplify!” 

Now, after reading Walden, I make a point of going outside, even if it’s just to look at the nearby trees. I’ll never have the same experience as Thoreau. Las Vegas, Nevada isn’t anything like Concord, Massachusetts, and I don’t happen to have a friend with some land I can squat on and build a cabin to live in for two years, two months, and two days. My afternoon light is desert light, harsh in the summer but still extraordinary in the late afternoon when the humidity kicks in and the atmosphere hovers like sauna air. But the desert too has its beauties. We have red rock canyons in the distance, and a valley down below. We have some pretty parks in my neighborhood with views of the Las Vegas Strip and the mountains beyond. There are birds and trees. Even watching the sunset through my window can be a mindful moment where I appreciate the natural beauty around me. 

We don’t need to go to the extreme that Thoreau did, living in a cabin by a pond, to appreciate the natural world. Even the bits and bobs we find in the city will do. If you haven’t been outside to appreciate the beauty around you in a while, go right ahead. It’s good to be in the outside air, looking at the sky, and seeing some green. Even if it’s only at an outdoor park, which is where I usually go, it’s good to stop, look, and listen. It is one of the few moments of my day when I feel most like myself.