Dear Kate,
Remember how you told me the other day about our cousin Sam’s comments during your walk in the woods? How she loved to be “one with nature” and how it made you want to barf? Well, maybe her words and actions don’t always line up, considering she always just wants to take a picture for Instagram and get out of whatever “nature” she’s experiencing, but I DID want to try to help you understand what she meant by her statements. It’s not something to be scoffed at. Nature, I mean. When “becoming one with nature” is done right, it does a lot of good.
You might have heard of “Romanticism.” It was in full-swing in the early 1800s. Basically, during this time, people focused on being individuals, having new ideas, feeling strong emotions (of all kinds), reminiscing about the past, and loving nature. In my mind, it was a beautiful time of collective vulnerability. In 1854, a man named Henry David Thoreau published a book called “Walden.” It is about his life living in the woods by himself. He spend two years living in cabin near Walden Pond. Here’s what he said about why he did it:
