Wild and free in Thoreau's New England

At the beginning of the fifth month of my first pregnancy during a week where it was often hotter than 100 degrees, I ventured north with my mother on the trail of transcendentalism in Henry David Thoreau’s woods at Walden Pond.

Though I thought our jaunt into New England would offer cooler days and nights, it did not, but the trip, like the pond, was placid nonetheless: an improvised time of discovery, connection and reflection.

My most pleasant discovery was how affable everyone was in and around Concord, Mass., our official destination for the annual gathering of The Thoreau Society.

Expecting unapproachable high-brow personalities, I instead found folks who loved nature and were willing to open up.

There was much to learn about the literary richness of the area and even more still.

A lecture on the Zen drawings in Thoreau’s journals was especially stimulating as was keynote speaker Megan Marshall’s address about her many years of work uncovering the creative legacy of the Peabody sisters.

Most of the lectures took place in an old Masonic Hall without air conditioning, established in the 1700s by Paul Revere.

We used hand fans to keep cool, but it was no use.

Everyone commented on the weather, but all we could do was sweat in our old clothes and sigh.

I discovered an inchworm dangling from the nose of a Thoreau statue across from Walden Pond and while in the Alcott House — where Louisa May wrote “Little Women” — that my baby sister had just given birth to her first daughter.

Swimming in Walden Pond revitalized and cooled us, revealing a soft, sandy bottom accessible to the public, regardless of social standing.

Inspired was I by the discovery of the extraordinary civility of the motorists in Concord who stopped by force of habit to let pedestrians cross the road. Unfamiliar!

I discovered anew the stillness of nature during an early morning walk to a blue heron colony, deliberately observing flora and fauna varieties while dodging poison ivy and dung piles. Chipmunks scurried about as Audubon field guide author Peter Alden flooded us with knowledge about our natural surroundings.

My mom and I made myriad connections in New England — she with her unguarded greetings to anyone and everyone and me with my inquisitive way.

We got temporarily off course during our brief stop in Boston only to be approached by a middle-aged man who turned us around and then insisted he take our picture in front of the old statehouse.

At the B&B in Littleton, where we spent our first night with air-conditioning after several nights without, the innkeeper, Mary, lingered while we ate a breakfast prepared with the fresh ingredients: yogurt and blueberries, omelet with asparagus, crusty French bread and butter, cherries, coffee and real grapefruit juice.

She told us about her children and listened to my mom brag about hers before the conversation turned to the state of public education and putting down roots as an outsider in time-honored towns.

There was no exclusion here in spite of slightly divergent beliefs, only an acknowledgement of the value of variety — very New England.

Later, we wandered off the beaten path into a middle-class neighborhood in Concord only to stumble upon a garage sale where everything cost what one could afford.

The Jewish woman who lived there had raised six children and was simply cleaning out.

Donations accepted, no matter how small.

I got a sturdy wooden dollhouse and doll furniture for my unborn child, a toy stable and animals to go with it, half-dozen intact, vintage kid’s puzzles, a pile of Jewish children’s books and old-fashioned wrapping paper and Christmas tags from the 1960s, unopened.

My mom got a Raphael print of Mother and Child and who knows what else.

I left $10 in the donation cup and away we went, affirmed in our knowledge that in life, generosity begets the same.

On our final day in New England, at my cousin’s wedding near Providence, R.I., I reconnected with a side of the family I rarely get to see.

All my girl cousins fussed over my pregnancy and shared their secrets about childrearing.

All the while, down the rural back roads and past the forested hamlets of a place with early American history, I reflected on achieving a more simple life, as Thoreau would have it — yes, it is possible even in 2010.

I reflected on stronger ties with my mother and how much I appreciated my husband, lovesick without me back in Virginia.

I reflected on how my life is about to drastically change with the arrival of a child in November.

One day I’ll tell him or her all about my taste, the summer before their birth, of a wild and free way of life. It left me wanting more.