henry's journal

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



A year or so ago I found a great blog: This Date from Henry David Thoreau's Journal. I love reading what Thoreau was writing 150 years ago today.

Not only do I love to read his truely poetic descriptions of nature and observations of humanity, but I get inspired to write myself. I've been a journal keeper most of my life. Lately, though, I've been pretty bad at it. A baby is keeping me busy. Which is exactly why I should be writing now, too, and recording my adventures of new motherhood. In fact, I've started (started but not doing a very good job of keeping) a journal for Axel as well. I want to record his milestones, his precious and funny moments, significant things that happen in his little life that he'll forget. I'm a keeper of two lives right now and I really need to stop typing this post and start writing in some journals...

henry books

"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.” Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was writing for adults, philsophers and transcendentalists, but author and artists D.B. Johnson has proven that his ideas are for all ages, young and old!

D.B. Johnson has created books about Henry David Thoreau for children. I love these books! Read about Henry hiking, building, walking, climbing, and working. All with gorgeous artwork!



I don't own them yet, but you can bet I will soon and Axel will learn about Henry a lot sooner than I did!

walden, henry and me

"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book." Henry David Thoreau



I first read Henry David Thoreau's book Walden back in high school. It was the first time I ever read a book (that wasn't a textbook or scriptures) and marked it up with a pencil. I remember reading about three pages in, grabbing a pencil, and immediately went back to page one and started marking passages. I love this book. It's a book I can pick up and just open randomly and start reading. What a gem!

I think the book and Thoreau's experiment of living in the woods, alone and largely self-sufficient, is often misunderstood. It seems many people assume that Thoreau wants all of us to return to a life close to nature, living off of nature, and isolating ourselves from society and machines. I don't think this is at all what he wanted us to understand from his experiment. I think he wanted us to simply some take time to examine our individual lives in our society and evaluate how we can simplify our lives to live, as it puts it, more "deliberately".



Thoreau wants us, I think, to find a balance in our lives and to ask ourselves what things are getting in our way of enjoying life and the people in it? What kind of schedule have we committed ourselves to that keep us from family and home? What kind of debts and financial decisions are keeping us trapped?

Cumbering our lives is so easy to do and I certainly have been guilty of it. As Thoreau himself said, "Our life is frittered away by detail."

Reading Walden, or skimming through the marked up passages of my copy, always helps me to remember to realign my life to what is most important and to loosen up my ties to things I really don't need nor ultimately want.



This week I'm celebrating Walden and Henry David Thoreau with a series of posts on Thoreau and his influence on me.

By the way...the photographs in this entry come from a photographer, Smári, who has spent a year creating a gorgeous album of images of the pond in all seasons. I've never visited Walden Pond in Massachusetts but these photographs truly take me there...



All images copyright © 2008 Smari
http://waldenproject.com/

seriously cupcakes in cyperspace

Remember how my sister Susan makes the best cupcakes ever? No, really... Best. Cupcakes. Ever.

Her business, Seriously Cupcakes, is still booming and she just opened a website! Go to http://www.seriouslycupcakes.com/.

If you live in the West Houston area you can order her yummy cupcakes (like Pumpkin and Italian Cream and Boston Cream and Triple Coconut) through her website and Susan will personally bake, decorate and deliver them!

And if you don't live in the West Houston area...well, you can drool over the photos.

to be a poet

On Poets.org today there are ideas on how to dress as your favorite poet for Halloween. Now I know what I want to be for Halloween!

Maybe I'll dress Axel up as a little Walt Whitman to my Emily Dickinson. He'd look cute with a beard of butterflies!

this american life

I like public radio. One of my favorite public radio shows is This American Life.

I discovered it when I lived in Michigan and my sister had me listen to the episode My Big Break (because I'm a Beatles fan and she knew I'd find Act One fun) and then listened to it once in a while on the radio and when we lived in Germany I began listening to it online. It became my favorite home companion: I'd listen as I cleaned my apartment and as I quilted and as I traveled on trains.

Now I like to listen as I clean my house and as I quilt and as I nurse Axel.

I like their everyman stories that I can relate to (like babysitting ) and their not so everyman bizarre tales from life (like baby swapping).

Here are some of my favorite episodes:

Fiasco
New Beginnings (Their very first episode and Act One is one of my most favorite stories I've heard on This American Life.)
Americans in Paris (Brings sweet memories of my own trips to Paris to mind...including all those loud-talking American tourists.)

The Super

Backed into a Corner (I love the story of the girl working at the Quiznos.)

If you've never listened I'd encourage you to use this list to give it a try. If you're already a fan, then what are some of your favorites?

kikeriki

When I was a missionary in Germany many years ago, I learned that German roosters do not say "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" They say "Kikeriki!" It never occured to me that different cultures would reproduce the sounds animals make in such a completely different way!

Last year I somehow stumbled on the coolest website called BzzzzPeek. Their mission is to record children all over the world making animal and vehicle sounds so you can hear and compare them. And it is the cutest site!

For instance, in Croatia a dog says "vowvow" and in Japan a cat says "miamia".

And in America flies say "bzzzz" while in Germany they say "zoomzoom" but in France they say "bzzzzpeek"!