Each year around this time he attempts to catch it. Like a falling knife, one can be cut trying to pick the first moment of spring, only to be hit with additional frost or snows. Like the first cool winds of autumn, indicating the expected but resisted transition, the first moments of solar warmth on moist soil triggers a slow but stunning medley of orchestrated growth. His awareness ramps up as he anticipates his own moment, the first note.
Thoreau notes that doctors often recommend a change of scenery for the sick(cabin fever), but he slyly mocks this view, saying that the “universe is wider than our views of it.” He argues that it is perhaps a change of soul, rather than a change of landscape, that is needed. Thoreau remarks that his reasons for leaving Walden Pond are as good as his reasons for going: he has other lives to live, and has changes to experience. He says that anyone confidently attempting to live “in the direction of his dreams” will meet with uncommon success, and calls this dream life the real destination that matters.
His brother often laughs and notes how he always attempts to “create his own reality”. If not himself, then whom? Perhaps we should consider living our lives in concert with our dreams of what we want life to be and feel like in this moment. String together a series of moments and you have a day, and so on. Like wishful resolutions we all need a starting point. The silent explosion of the first buds provides just that.
