When I Visited Walden Pond

By Kathryn Lane

The past three years, my husband and I have spent the summers in a cabin in northern New Mexico. We are isolated, in a way. We are connected to the outside world with excellent internet, workable phone communications, and muddy dirt roads during the rainy season.

As I watch the deer, elk, birds, and the occasional bear, I’m reminded of my favorite Henry David Thoreau quote "We can never have enough of nature." And that takes me to his experiences at Walden Pond.

During my corporate years, I mostly worked overseas, but on two rare occasions I had domestic assignments. One of those instances, I went to Boston for three weeks. I loved the city and became mesmerized by its history, especially that pertaining to the American Revolution. Being from Mexico, I did not know US history and this was a unique opportunity. In the evenings, I walked the Freedom Trail, stopping along the way at Faneuil Hall, the old State House, and continuing to Paul Revere’s statue and his home, now the oldest building in downtown Boston.

One weekend, I visited Lexington and Concord where the revolution started. Being an avid cyclist at the time, I rented a bicycle so I could visit Walden Pond. Thoreau’s book, Walden, intrigued me and here was my opportunity to cycle around the entire pond and enjoy the place where he had lived for a couple of years.

The pond, a kettle hole formed by retreating glaciers about 10,000 years ago, was worth seeing, not to mention experiencing the place Thoreau made famous. The shores of the pond consisted of terrain suitable for walking but I quickly learned that tree roots and sharp rocks were not kind to bicycle tires! After fixing a flat halfway around, I decided to walk the bike the rest of the way to make sure I could ride back to Concord where I’d left the rental car.

Now that I live close to nature part of the year, I reflect on Thoreau's years there and his writing.

The central ideas expressed in Walden are experience, self-reliance, and worship. He examined the fundamental elements of humanity. Very lofty ideas.

My novels are genre, plain and simple. And I love writing them from a mountain cabin! Yet, as an author who loves history, you’d think I’d write historical novels. Mysteries and thrillers fascinate me and that’s what I write. I’m captivated by the twists and turns of mystery and suspense.

Of course, there are historical mysteries. Humm, I’ll have to ponder that thought while enjoying the mountain scenery of northern New Mexico!

Do you secretly wish you wrote in a different genre?

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Kathryn Lane started out as a starving artist. To earn a living, she became a certified public accountant and embarked on a career in international finance with a major multinational corporation. After two decades, she left the corporate world to plunge into writing mystery and suspense thrillers. In her stories, Kathryn draws deeply from her Mexican background as well as her travels in over ninety countries.