Pictures of the Swimming Spot

In the Boston Globe today, they have a series of pictures of the past century of swimming.  The HUGE concrete pier and floating docks.  I had thought it was a trick of memory, but this is really what the beach used to look like!

August 18, 1946.  The War is over and summer still has a few weeks to play out.  Maybe the concrete pier is standard to most swimming places, but it reminds me of pictures of kids beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.  As if jumping off industrial pilings were more favored than just running straight into the water from the shore. Man conquering nature.

This is what I remember from when I was younger:

August 2, 1981

Lifeguard Beach is bigger than it is currently.  I love how you can SEE the shallow rectangle for swimming on the main beach.  And how the buoys are much further away than they seem this summer.  (Currently, there are 2 sets, one up to my waist and another one just over my head)  Those other dots seem too big to be individual people.  Somehow it looks bigger in the photograph, but I think it's an illusion.  Swimming there now is like swimming in a huge canyon of water.  You can't gauge distance by anything other than a few landmarks.  (But that's what I love about it!)

It is less crowded now (thank goodness), but is it serving fewer of the people who really need it?  Maybe kids used to be bussed in from the inner city.  I'd like to think that with all the available swimming spots in MA, that the kids are just more dispersed.  Camps, ponds, or other "recreational" activities.  I don't wanna think about videogames, nannies, television or whatever else that occupies young minds other than the joys of swimming.

The original link is here:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/specials/insiders/2013/08/28/bucolic-walden-pond/5RInDg0J595Ca21aFOem3O/picture.html

Driving Directions to Walden

My route to Walden begins in Waltham, and if you are coming off of Route 128, you can follow these directions as well.

Leave the congested highway & industrial parks behind and head towards the trees.  There is a house with a miniature bridge in front of it, on the right, easy to miss. There used to be a bump in the road that would leave your stomach up in the air for a moment, but the road was repaved almost 20 years ago and the street lost this quality.

Go past a few more streets, think of this area as a place where Henry identified Cassandra Chamaedaphne calyculata, aka the Partridge Pea.

And then the road takes your breath away.  The Cambridge Reservoir suddenly expands your view on both sides.  If you happen to be coming in the fall, the colors will surround you.  Some days the water is mirror like.  Others, the scene exists in shades of grey.

There is a family who has a pond in their front yard, on your right, look for a stone sculpture.

As long as you are not traveling in the full lushness of summer, you can see the Wooden Castle (112 Trapelo Rd, it's currently for sale $875k)  You can easily see it through the trees.  There was an open house sometime in the early 90's and I spoke to the disillusioned owner who was desperately trying to sell.  He had made a fortune in one of the technology bubbles (late 70's, it was built in 1980), and was told by a gypsy that he would always be safe if he lived in a house with turrets.  The gypsy was wrong.

There's a tin replica of an American flag just beyond it and directly across the street is a barn with a peace sign painted onto the door.  (Once some vandal had painted over one line to transform it into a symbol for a famous expensive car.  If you are wondering, the American flag came MUCH later than the barn peace sign)

There are fields and lovely houses along the road.  Keep an eye out for a farmhouse & silo, posed next to a reflective pond.  You'll have to look over your shoulder as you go up a hill.   Just make sure you don't plow into the town cemetery (which now exists as a large, above ground traffic island).

At the 5-Way Stop Sign, you'll want to look to your left to make sure you don't miss the Lincoln Library, which is a brick gem itself, including turrets from the 1800's and a recent glass wing.  The tree in front has managed to twist itself into spirals watching the traffic over the past 100+ years.

Go straight across (look for a sandwich board communicating interesting local events on the mini-traffic island).  Admire the trees and houses along the road here, one used to have a winter scene painted on a window pane on the 2nd floor.  Another held a secret tunnel/room for the Underground Railroad. (I hear it is now used as a wine cellar)

The field on the left belongs to the town and is where they shoot off fireworks for the 4th of July.  Along on your right will be the Decordova Museum & Sculpture Park, which I have talked about on a previous post.  Don't get distracted now, you are about to actually come to a turn!

If you keep going on the road you are on, you will drive along Sandy Pond Road, which Henry knew as Flint's Pond.  He complained about Farmer Flint and what right had he to give his name to a pond where all he did was own the title to the land.  It's a reservoir now, but a very lovely view nevertheless.  (Hikers and swimmers are discouraged, but Walden is easier and better anyhow!)

Just beyond the goat field (I think I've seen as many as 3), you will see Baker Bridge Road on your left.  (The asphalt is purple) There will be a horse farm on your right, with a few conspicuous horses.  Up the road is a school and another horse place (where the horses are completely hidden from view).  Follow the road as it winds around a large rock and in no time you will find yourself at the great trivia question.  When was this beautiful white house with the glass wall and spiral staircase built? 1980's?  Nope, 1938!  The Gropius House.

I know it is tempting, but keep going.

Down the hill, you'll come across fields on either side of the road.  They are the Lincoln CSA Farms (community sponsored agriculture) for the less advantaged.  This past summer, in the left field, there were a row of sunflowers planted closest to the road.  On the right, you can look behind the field and see a house.  It is on the same road that the Thoreau Institute is on.  Don't look too hard, here's another turn!  Right! Onto Rt 126!!  Quick!

If you happen to turn left instead, you can make a scenic detour and head past the Codman Estate (1790).  Even if the house itself is not open, park & go for a walk of the grounds.  Especially the jewel of the Italianate garden, with its rectangle pool and stone sculptures.  (There's plenty to distract yourself with on this side of Rt 2, if Walden's parking lot is closed due to overcapacity on a hot day!)

Back to our regularly scheduled turn onto 126.  Immediately in front of you, there are 2 stone driveway columns and a sign marked "Private Way".  If you were to drive up there (don't, not just yet anyway), on Baker Farm Road, you'd encounter a bunch of speedbumps and at the very top, a/the Thoreau Institute which lives in a former hunting lodge.

But keep on Rt 126, the brown wooden barriers are a sign that you've reached the edge of the property.  The lake will soon emerge on your left, hopefully smiling in the sun.

Enjoy yourself!!

Swimming Tour of Walden

One of my many fantasies about Walden includes creating and leading a swimming tour of Walden.

Bring just your body, bathing suit and your brain.  No watches, waterproof iPhones.  No cameras and no baggage.

Ideally, twice a day.  Plan for two hours total, but try not to schedule anything immediately afterwards.  You may want to stay longer.

We'd meet inside the Thoreau replica.  Always a good idea to get a sense of Henry's life.  A cozy room, just enough.  Especially good to contrast with the immensity of the water.  Maybe recommend that people pick up a small stone (to be carried in their belly button).

We'd cross to the map, where I'd point out the shape of the pond.  A one legged buffalo.  Or a cathedral.  I'd point out the bays, stuff that people had read in books.

Then we'd go down to the water.

Right at the bottom of the ramp, go down the steps, drop your towel & shoes on the stone wall.  Vamp a little bit, maybe go around asking names while we all get a little used to the temperature of the water.  Stand up to our waists for a few minutes.

Then dive in.

I'd encourage everyone to follow me a little past the view of the swimming ropes, out of earshot of the children's shouts.  Discuss how the shoreline has changed, how the water ate the beach during the summer of 2011 (?).  The renovation & retaining walls installed in 1986, the removal of a concrete pier & my memories of it.  Learning to swim in these waters.  Swimming there every summer of my life.  An annual baptism.

Lifeguard Beach, although there are never any lifeguards there, and this is the first year they've installed swimming ropes there.  It's preferable if you want to get away from the crowds at the main beach, but the stones make for difficulty walking or standing.  Turtle nest there.

Further in, close to the middle, we'd stop and contemplate.  I'd point out paths to Henry's Beanfield, his hut, the train tracks, direction of Fairhaven Bay (the forest fire), Emerson's Cliff, the Andromeda ponds.

But I wouldn't want to give it all away, just yet.

Mostly, we'd tread water, look around, and enjoy.  This is my favorite place in the entire world.  I've seen the pond frozen over.  (And am too much of a chicken to walk to this spot even with thick ice)  We'd discuss Henry's use of time. "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers".  The seasons of the year, even though he was there for 2 years, 2 months and 2 days in the book "Walden".  How timeless it is for someone like me.  Exactly the same as when I first swam across (the "Blue Skies" story), even though I might be a completely different person.  How it will be the same when I step into it when I am 90.  The funny quote about "never stepping into the same river twice", and this pond being a contrast.

We'd swim to Henry's Cove.  Get out, see if people are comfortable walking up to the House Site.  Moments for quiet contemplation and dropping off the bellybutton stones.

I'm a person who is hesitant to walk anywhere barefooted.  Although I have walked around the whole pond barefoot, and once 3/4 of the way sharing a pair of flipflops with a friend when I was 12.  BUt if we are feeling strong as a group, I may take them up the Fire Road.

The Moguls, my second favorite spot on the paths, third favorite on the property.  Henry knew it as the Deep Cut.  It's a 15 minute walk from the edge of the pond, Ice Fort Cove.  The meeting of Rt 2 and the railroad tracks, the edge of the property.  Huge pine trees and curving hills that would make any roller-coaster lover happy.

The pine trees make the trails soft to walk upon.  Unbelievably soft.  Suddenly Henry's barefoot lifestyle seems less difficult than you could have ever thought possible.

We'd dive in again at Ice Fort Cove.  I'd explain about how the trees block the view from Emerson's Cliff.  How Henry's view of the tree-lined shore as a child was similar to what we are looking at now.  But when he was living here, the trees had been mostly cut down, for the railroad, for timber and for firewood.

I'd talk about the Irish workers who lived by the railroad tracks.  And the 1/4 mile horsetrack on the other side of the tracks.  And the amusement park, which welcomed thousands between 1866-1902.  Today the crowds are limited to one thousand lucky people at one time.  (I've always preferred popular places when they are deserted, and somehow the joy of the inner-city ghosts who once came still haunt the waters.  Walden accommodates everyone and everything, and returns to itself)

There are trails to explore surrounding the pond, and I'd encourage hikers to go to Heywood's Meadow.  I've seen beaver there, plus evidence of their hard work. Stumps carved into perfect cones, like something from a cartoon.

Somehow the return swim always seems shorter and quicker.  I'd encourage everyone to do a bit of birding (or clouding, as per the crowd's tastes).  I saw a Great Blue Heron while I was doing the backstroke & staring at some clouds yesterday.  It is the time for serious contemplation and great thought.  The shore comes up too quickly.

At the end, I'd also say that back when I was a youngster, the Ice Cream Truck was thankfully parked in the Boat Parking Lot.  But now it lives across the street in the regular one.  And it is a great place to sample another sense (taste).  And to examine license plates and accents from different parts of the country & world.

Swims This Season (so far)

Everytime I look at Walden, especially up close, I want to dive right in.  Summer is my favorite season there.  Followed by Spring, when I anticipate swimming.  Or Fall, when I think back on swimming.  Or even Winter, when I contemplate the ice and wonder how long it will be for the snow and ice to melt before I can swim again.

This week, it was Monday morning (because I had just gotten back from New York).  Across the pond and back.  It's only .5 of a mile, I learned this week.  (I'm bad at numbers, I used to think it was 1.5, which is closer to the circumference around the pond).  Also used to think it was 120 feet (the height of the inside of Grand Central), but it is only 102 feet deep.   Which does make it the deepest in all of Massachusetts.  I still like to imagine the whole of Grand Central submerged beneath me.

I went for a walk later as well, by then it was oddly too cold to go for another swim.  The nights were getting down to 40 degrees.  Throughout July, even the water temperature got up close to 80 degrees in some parts!!  (The shallow parts, I'm sure.  Someone said they had to stop swimming because they were sweating so much . . .?)

Wednesday, I went for a Literary walk, a Park Interpreter led us out at 5:30.  We were meditating on the essay, "Walking", published after his death.  I went for a half swim (1 hour, paddling past Lifeguard Beach and hanging around until the announcements)

Thursday, I stole a full swim in the late evening.  The humidity made the sun and clouds look yellow, bouncing light off the water.  The forecast was for rain, heavy rain, all day.  But it was cleared up by 2, and I was in the water from 6-7:30!!

Friday rained.  Saturday rain is expected.  Sunday and Monday, SUN!!

Lovely when you discover that you exercise is also your compulsion.

Sauntering

Monday, August 5, 2013:

Sunset Saunter at 5:30.  It was excellent.  We got lost. A glimpse of Goose Pond, over to Pine Hill (up the steep paved road to the reservoir) back into the woods, and instead of heading towards the Thoreau Institute (a 5 minute walk), we wandered in the direction of Flint's Pond on Pine Hill Trail.   We crossed Sandy Pond Road and tried to find a path by Sandy/Flint's but it seemed abandoned or "ruined" in many ways by a woman who had been walking her dog there, and tried to rescue it from broken ice and died herself.  Her parents sued and now the "No Trespassing" signs are less intimidating than the actual amount of bushwacking required.

We wandered back into the woods and back out, onto Granville Road, walked by Gropius House (both), down Baker Bridge Road, by the CSA farm fields, crossed 126/Concord Rd and back onto Walden Forest Territory.  We walked past some numbered trees (?) and a bog to the railroad tracks, near the beaver pond.  We crossed the tracks to get to the other side of the pipe outlet (Jean fell), back over, we were walking back, tired. Saw that some trees had been taken out by humans, removed completely was the one who had been leaning on the crook of another tree.  Beaver's Madness.  We then saw two of them, swimming separately, in separate directions.   Saw Cotton Weed, which felt like a rabbit's foot, complete with fake bunny bones (hopefully, I had just gotten cheap rabbit's feet in my life).  We walked 4.6 miles, avg 2.3 mph.

Decordova

I took Clay Classes at Decordova (est 1930) as a child; I still stare at a mask I made that stares back at me.  And I have a glazed version of my family living room, circa 1983.

I went back there on Free First Wednesday with my best friend from childhood, Julie, and her 3 kids (!)  They are 7, 4 and 2.  Very intelligent and curious.  Eager to seek out the labels for each sculpture and wanting to identify the materials of the ones inside.  It was exciting to see them so excited and it was so easy to immediately let the years of being out of touch slip away. Children demand your attention so fully in the moment that past regrets no longer weigh you down.  The elephant in the room is no match for the screaming 2 year old who demands your attention.

I have no memory of fully exploring the grounds as a kid, only a vague sense that one day there were crowds of kids whose parents were artistic and hippie-like and who lived an existence I knew nothing about.  I remember being scared/thrilled by art I didn't understand.  And I was pulled away, we didn't have time or maybe my parents weren't interested.  They were different from who we were somehow.

Walden's Rainy Birthday Spent in Concord

I would love to say I have swum in Walden today.  And I have, but only metaphorically, inside the pages of the book, not the pond itself.  Today, in Concord, the sky was full of rain, so Walden was falling on us, all around.

Personally, I opened my copy of Walden this morning and found Henry being honest from the beginning.  He "lived a mile away" from society when he was writing "the bulk" of these pages (he wrote, but then went through several editions & edited like crazy!).  He had returned after 2 years, 2 months and 2 days (a phrase which I've only begun 'listening' to within the past year or so, although I've probably 'heard' it my whole life.)  Those who scoff at him for being too close to home and letting his mom do his laundry haven't read him lately.  He's honest up front.

I then went to Concord, which always means a ride past Walden itself.  In the rain, it turns silver.

Starving and went to Helen's (est. 1936) the best restaurant on Main Street, a big grand window to the street.  My favorite waitress, who usually wears a frown and seems busy no matter how many customers she has, seemed to welcome me in.  I don't know that I've been there more than 10 times in the past 5 years, but she recognized me!  I told her I was writing a play about Henry and asked what she'd say if he walked in.  "How the hell ya been?" she said with a laugh.  I finally asked her what her name was, she said it's Helen.  Her GRANDMOTHER started the place in the 30's.  It was always known as a bakery before that.  I had a Cuban and some coffee.  An excellent place to go.

I put more money in the meter outside my car and ran to the Concord Bookshop (est,1940).  I purchased a copy of "The Peabody Sisters" and a hardcover of "Margaret Fuller" by the same author, her writing speaks to me in a way that makes me think it will be a pleasure to read.  And I have decided to follow my pleasures, especially understanding that they will turn my work into pleasure gradually.

At the Concord Museum I was welcomed from the storm by a nice little old lady volunteer who was happy to take my money for the Museum and the Emerson House.  ($15) There was a great exhibit upstairs about Phenology, which is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal & interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors.

I ran into someone who claimed that he was writing a book about Susan Fenimore Cooper, who was writing about nature 10 years before Thoreau.  his friend called Henry "the James Dean" of the Transcendentalists, for having died so young and stealing everyone else's glory.

They have some fancy dining rooms (which put me off) but they also have a recreated Emerson study with all of his genuine artifacts.  Somehow, when I poked my head in, I heard voices.  Good voices, enthusiastic ones, eager to talk about life and nature and how we are all connected.   The intelligent/sympathetic people at the museum must've had the same instincts I did, because they also installed a button with a minute of recorded actors.  Including a phrase from Margaret Fuller, "I love to sit in your library without you, "  the words & feelings work just as well as if Emerson were there.

I drove by Emerson's house to the way to the Old Manse.  Apparently, both have hourly tours and you are not allowed to go into the house otherwise. Walked around in the rain, saw a rabbit, heard the trees in the wind and knew a bigger mess of rain was coming my way.  But it was still a warm, lovely August rain.  All in all, I didn't mind.