David Howell

From Thoreau’s Walking: “If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again; if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk.”  Amongst the various and complex themes imbedded here, the spirit of solitude in Thoreau’s lines is what moves me. I don’t literally want to leave my family and never return, but I do want to be alone every now and then… Who doesn’t?