My Busy Concord Weekend

On Friday, I swam across Walden.  Saw other swimmers, water temp was around 62 degrees, but not too cold.  At sunset, I lit a candle and another Pond friend lit one and we honored Shabbat and the Lost Swimmer (it was the third Friday in a row that I had lit a candle there).  I did not go to the sponsored concert because I was cold from swimming and didn't have $30 to spend.

On Saturday, I went on the Ramble on the Amble Hike (see preceding posts!), had a bite at Main St Cafe with a fellow walker, who happens to also have a high regard for Concord Literary history.  (I then went to an unrelated concert in Shirley, Peter Yarrow. I had won tickets from WMBR in Cambridge.  In fact, I had an extra ticket that went to waste.)

On Sunday, I was planning to do the tour of Sleepy Hollow, but as I started walking by the graves, I decided to instead went to the Thoreau Farm to hear the talk about Ives' Concord Sonata.  (Only 13 people or so). Then met up with a Pond friend for dinner at Helen's and went to the Concord Museum for a talk about a book "On Paper".

A perfect weekend, really.  If anything, I'd always like to make sure that physical activities conclude with food.  And that lectures get paired with something fun at Walden.  In future, maybe it will become a Facebook Group or Meetup.

Please contact me by leaving a comment if/when you'd like to be on the list for future events.

Typical Events AND Complementary Activities

October is always a fun and active time in New England, especially in Concord. Sometimes, there are just TOO many things to do!  I included a mention in parentheses of suggested additional activities that the 'Concord Conversations" Group could/are doing. (Contact me in comments if you are interested in joining!)

Listings Taken from:

Thoreau Farm

Freedom's Way

Thoreau Society

Sense of Place

Transcendentalism Council of Concord 

Concord Festival of Authors 2013 

Concord Concerts, October 18 & 19, 8pm, 51 Walden ($30)

http://www.thoreausociety.org/events

(Visit Walden Pond ahead of time for recreation of your choice: walking/swimming/kayaking)

Saturday, October 19, 1:30pm-4, Heywood Meadow, Concord Center 

Fall Family Ramble on the Amble 

http://sense-of-place-concord.blogspot.com/

(Meet for brunch before or coffee afterwards at Helen's for conversations)

Sunday, October 20, 2-4:30pm, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

"A Walk Through Time"

(also overlaps with a meeting 3:30-5 including refreshments)

http://www.freedomsway.org/friends/news.html

(Partake of refreshments)

Sunday Salon: Thoreau’s Flute & Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata
Kyle Gann, Associate Professor of Music at Bard College 
Sunday, October 20 at 2 p.m.  Thoreau Farm  http://thoreaufarm.org/events/   Dr. Gann will talk of the connection of Henry Thoreau and the “Concord Sonata” written by innovative composer Charles Ives. Gann’s forthcoming book, “Essays After a Sonata: Charles Ives’s Concord”, will be released in 2015 by Yale University Press.

(Meet at Helen's for dinner)

Concord Museum/Festival of Authors: On PAPER  A consideration of all things paper—the invention that revolutionized human civilization: it's thousand-fold uses (and misuses); its sweeping influence on society; its makers, shapers, collectors, and pulpers. 

WHO: Nicholas A. Basbanes

WHEN: Sunday, October 20 at 7:30pm

WHERE: Concord Museum

Tuesday, October 22, 7:30pm, Thoreau Institute

Jeffrey Cramer discusses his work

http://www.concordfestivalofauthors.com/2013/events/#a_life_with_thoreau

(Meet at Walden Pond for recreation of your choice in the afternoon)

Wednesday morning, October 23, 9:30am-11am, Lincoln Hike

Location:

Roadside pullouts at north end of Sandy Pond Road (south of Garland Road)

(Meet for lunch afterwards)

We can't do everything, but we can try!!

Ramble on the Amble Trail

The next set of posts were taken on a hike, led by Cherry Corey (her blog is Sense of Place) on October 19, 2013.  Lovely weather!  Hikers coordinated parking across the street from the High School (the end of that hike) and carpooled to the beginning of the trail, near the Emerson House.

The picture is a trail marker for the "Emerson/Thoreau Amble"  (Google map here) and for the Bay Circuit Trail.  There is another white rectangle marker which I think is a "Concord Trails" indicator.  The photo was taken in Heywoods Meadow next to Emerson house.  You can read about the history of the trail being forged (again) by town activists here, taking a walk in 2007.

A Note about Parking: You might want to do what the group did and park at the Trail Head across from Concord Carlistle Regional High School (there is room for a few cars).  Or at Emerson House, you can park on the street- but there are not too many spaces.  You can easily go all the way to Walden (probably 2 miles), but be aware that Route 2 (A MAJOR HIGHWAY) cuts through the idyllic walk.  If you are the type to carry a lot of beach gear with you, park at Walden when you swim.  If you are just going to see the scenery, the trail actually skips the Main Beach and leads right to Henry's house site.  (Bring a rock for the Cairn!!)

If you are looking for the entrance to the trail, it is at the back of Heywood Meadow.  (Heywood owned property around Walden too, in case you know the name "Heywood Meadow" in reference to that part of town) This Heywood Meadow is on Lexington Street and will be on your right if you are coming from the center of town.  It is the last patch of open land before you reach Emerson's House (and the Concord Museum across the street). I didn't see a path connecting Emerson's yard (please don't bushwack one!!), but the trail goes just behind the house so that it is in view for the first section.

My History

I have grown up with Walden always in my consciousness.

As a kid, I learned how to swim (and how to enjoy swimming and being in the water) there.

I have a memory of the pebbled cement dock that existed on the main beach up through the early 80's.

My Father was a great saunterer through forests, including a woods at the end of our street.  Jericho Hill is a hilly area, its paths leading to many a backdoor and even a farm.  He taught me to walk, to notice, to pay attention and to meander.  He was my first, and probably best, walking companion.  My fondest wish would be to have transcripts of those talks from my childhood.  As with most polished memories, perhaps they are better lost to time.  I have no specific memories, but I do have some photographs.  I remember happiness.

I can date the last walk I took there with my father.  Probably Spring of 1986, or maybe Fall.  It was not swimming season.  They had just open after a renovation in which they had removed the cement dock and created the stone retaining walls around the bathroom building by the main shore.  We never swam there together; he died just before Thanksgiving of that year.

My mother would bring me and my best friends there during the summers.  It is an easy 15 minutes from our house, leaving heavy traffic areas and meandering into farmland and fun landmarks.  A change of mood as much as location.

I made my first lap around the pond with a younger friend at age 12, unannounced and unaccompanied by an adult.  We had one pair of flipflops between us, which we dutifully shared and traded.  We each wore one shoe for a while, then switched off.  When we were about three quarters of the way around the pond, the Walden rescue speedboat asked if we were Anne & Tammy.  The jig was up.

When I first discovered poetry, I convinced my friend Julie to become scribe for me, and I attempted to swim the pond in short laps, near to the shore.  I would compose and shout verses to her and she transcribed my thoughts. I have always done my best work in the middle of the pond.  Again, the results are probably best left to posterity.

I first saw across at the age of 20, or perhaps before.  I had always been a good swimmer, and one day decided to conquer my fear of swimming across the immense distance.  I had few achievable personal goals at the time, and fewer mentors to suggest them.  So I challenged myself.

The clouds began to darken the skies before I got halfway across.  I was terrified of being trapped at the other end of the pond by a thunderstorm or, if I was really slow, a sunset.  I laugh at my naivete now, but I genuinely had little to no sense of time or how easy it would be to return on foot.  (I did have a worried mother, who worried me twice as much)  On my return, the clouds parted and I began singing "Blue Skies" to myself.  Whenever I hear that song, I remember that moment.  When despair seems so close, and then you are saved.