One with the Earth

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."
- Henry David Thoreau

This is a second quotation my son had engraved on a plate that he affixed to a stepping stone outside where I barbecue. Why does Thoreau's quotation bother me? Rather than stare at it, I read the words from a corner of my eye, looking more like an embarrassed dog than like a man awed by the profound. Am I convicted? Is it vanity?

My picture of Mr. Thoreau is not one of him floating out on the Pond under a warm and buzzing sky but, instead, I see him laying on the ground, doing nothing but feeling, and discovering his destiny of becoming one with the earth, of becoming something like a pumpkin left in the field one month after harvest. But then what did he do? He stood up to live, sat down to write and, in so doing, left the quotation that lives at my feet.

I have never given respect to Thoreau's Bohemian style, and I've always shied away from Thoreau to gaze at Emerson. Emerson, though, circles me back to Thoreau. What a mess--especially at this time in my life when I am forced to sit down to live.


© 2009, Steven R. Lundin, all rights reserved