“Summer is gone with all its infinite wealth, and still nature is genial to man. Though he no longer bathes in the stream, or reclines on the bank, or plucks berries on the hills, still he beholds the same inaccessible beauty around him.” – H.D.T., November 22, 1860
“The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs of the village day. They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well-conducted institution regulates a whole country.” – H.D.T., Walden
“Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, — if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you, — know the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus you may feel your pulse.” – H.D.T., February 25, 1859
Dear Henry –
The other day, while riding my bicycle into work, I crushed a hermit snail. With a gasp I kept riding, but was overcome by the feeling that I had just committed the most egregious kind of sin. Tears burned on my face as I continued on. It would have been something else to kill a european black slug, invasive and numerous; even then I cringe at the possibility of taking any life, no matter how pestilent – but to kill a hermit slug was like killing a banana slug, or even slaying a panda. It bowls you over with the sense that you have just destroyed something infinitely rare and precious.
Loss. Such deep and abiding feelings are somehow amplified in the leap from gazing out of a car window to feeling the wind in your face. Joy, gratitude, misery – all escalate to new heights.
It’s turning out to be another wintry summer here, Henry. Knowing how Washingtonians grumble when it rains too much, I have been endeavoring pretty hard to conceal my disappointment, but it’s fast reaching the point where I’m going to blow my top. Really? Temps in the upper fifties and scattered showers every couple days, in an area known for having the longest rainy season and the most beautiful summers in the world? I had to summon all my power not to rise this morning, throw on my rainy weather cycling gear and dash down the hill from my house without shouting, “Oh, my hell. Somebody kill me NOW!”
Besides the lamentable conditions of the skies, compounding my discontent is the frustration that I can never be outside as frequently and as long as I want to be. You spent entire days rambling through your beloved meadows and woods, sparing as few precious hours as possible to industry in commitment to the idea that the true value of a life lies not in one’s net worth but in the sum total of one’s sublime experience. And yet see me (your fan), and one who professes a love of the sacred, let it all go by as I pass most of my young days at a desk, eyes glazed over, palms clasped over a mouse rather than in devotion. For what seems to be the umpteenth time in my life, I find myself praying to the wrong god.
Obviously, there is always much to grumble about.
But I often think how lucky I am, for the health to ride to work every day, wind or sun, rain or shine, to enjoy the perspiration on my skin as I push my body to new limits of exertion. During this wintry summer I can continue to take pride in the fact that a bit of precipitation won’t keep me off my bike. Fear, lack of will and discomfort were long ago replaced by intrepid athleticism. And something tells me that as a lover of walks in your day, you would embrace cycling and happily join me. A saner, simpler existence begins with one small step, and it turns out that this has been mine.
God knows how the world needs the multitudes to awaken and begin taking those small steps, whatever they are. As I write this, the wheels are seriously falling off, Henry – as weather patterns run amok due to our planetary indiscretions, children whose cries we don’t hear continue to starve needlessly and the race to the bottom divides itself by zero as “resources” run scarce everywhere we look. Everything in the news tells us that the formerly euphoric promise of the markets has proven false. On the island where I live, people have embraced this realization and are working to create a self-sufficient existence that is no longer tethered to these failed systems, by living in much the same way you did once: growing their own food, raising their own livestock, living in closer relationship to the land they inhabit, and yes, riding their bicycles more often, and in some cases, foregoing driving altogether. Actually, many of us have realized that an economic and social crash could happen rather suddenly. In my darker moments, I wonder whether I’ll finish these letters to you. What if, along with the passenger pigeon and steller’s sea cow, electricity were to go extinct overnight? Only a week ago, a spoke on my rear tire managed to work its way loose, a fact I didn’t notice until the bike-obsessed husband looked at it and said to me, “your tire is WAY out of true. Better take it into the shop.” – Or more wisely, learn how to fix it myself. The world around us has a curious way of going kerplunk, after which we realize what’s happening when it’s too late.
So, having begun Lao Tzu’s journey of a thousand miles – my “single step” being my love affair with my Specialized Ariel – I can already tell you with confidence how much I have witnessed by stepping forward and opening my eyes: to crispy dead frogs, lying deep-fried on the road and perfectly preserved by the sun; northern flickers on highwires; yellow warblers flitting alongside me as I pedal through Maxwelton Valley, like dolphins alongside a cruising ship; beef cows grazing peacefully with numbered tags on their ears, clueless as to their fate; curious fauns; rabbits scampering fearlessly across the road kamikaze style; seemingly just begging to be struck; the air as it rushes over my face, arms, legs, and through my lungs, invigorating every cell in my body.
What marvels we might witness if we choose, clueing us to how much of Nature remains resilient and beautiful, even as we busy ourselves destroying her. But if the wheels continue falling off the world, at least I have been reminded not to close my eyes. The only reason your name echoes throughout history is that you were one of the few who did not.
Whether murdering snails on the road or enjoying the sun and rain, like you, let me take all of it bravely and with eyes wide open, come whatever.
Yours as Ever,
Hannah
