Intentional Sauntering: A Lesson from Thoreau

“It is a great art to saunter,” said Henry David Thoreau, according to the magnet on my refrigerator. 

I’ve often envied Thoreau’s schedule of tromping through the woods in the mornings and then writing in the afternoons.  Somewhere in there he hoed a lot of beans and made pencils.  Whatever he did, he focused on what he called “living deliberately.” 

In yoga, we call this intention.  At the beginning of class, yoga teachers will often offer an opportunity for students to have an intention for the class.  This intention is supposed to arise organically.  I have to admit that rarely happens for me.  Usually, the teacher provides an intention if you can’t think of one, but that feels like cheating to me.  So I struggle for a worthwhile intention, and then I just have to attend to what is actually happening, and that creates its own sense of purpose.   

For Thoreau, sauntering was not just physical.  It was also about taking time to read, write, and simply be present in the world instead of rushing around as he saw his fellow Concordians doing.  He was able to live outside of that and observe.  The events, upheavals, and experiences he witnessed back in the early 19^th century certainly resonate with us in the present day, which is probably why his work still strikes a chord. 

Most of the time, I am physically unable to saunter.  I walk fast, with purpose.  I remember going into a store one time to pick up some birthday cards on my way to work.  As I strode up the aisle, the proprietor looked up at the sound of my footsteps and said, “Somebody’s a Type A personality.”  Now, I know Type A personalities and I’m not one of them.  But apparently I walk like one.  That gave me pause (very briefly of course).  Does this reflect how I want to be in the world?  And then I was off again.  

I am also mentally unable to saunter.  My mind usually works quickly and impulsively, such that if I can’t figure a thing out within a short time, I drop it.  This is why I am unable to use any technology to its fullest extent, because it takes time to learn.   Back when I taught high school, we didn’t have bells to change classes, so I was always the one yelling that break time was over and it was time to get back to class.  Since coming to teach at Rhode Island College, I have filled every available space with work.  As a result, I have felt, by turns, oppressed, overworked, trapped.  There is no time for sauntering during the school year, it seems. 

A couple of years ago, my friend and colleague Jenn Cook invited me to participate in the National Day of Writing, sponsored by the National Writing Project and the RI Writing Project.  We and some of our students enjoyed a couple of hours sauntering to different areas on campus and writing in our notebooks, sometimes sharing, sometimes not.  Afterward, breathless and laughing at how much fun we had, Jenn asked, “Why can’t every day on this campus feel like that?” 

Why not, indeed?  Last Friday, we had another writing marathon to celebrate Jenn’s memory by doing what she loved to do best—writing with a community of like-minded folks.  As I sat down on “the waves of learning,” a series of gentle undulations in the grass where we had had that conversation, I realized that I could choose to have this kind of experience every day.  I chose this profession precisely because it offered me freedom and agency—and with that, the opportunity to saunter.  So why did I put myself in a box? 

Lack of intention, I think.  Just as with hard work, creating time and space for sauntering also requires intention and discipline.   

Thoreau, who studied the “Hindoos,” or yogis, somehow understood that the sauntering and the work are both necessary for a rich and full life. 

It’s not as if things happen for a reason, but we can make sense of them the way we need to, to keep going.  That’s why we are capable of reflection.

We don’t have to accept things at face value. 

We can make meaning from them. 

We can be intentional about what we do as a result.