inspiration
comes from everywhere. and i mean everywhere. i just chanced upon this website, and found the precious quote below. i pray we all discover the saunterers in us.
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre" — to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a sainte-terrer", a saunterer — a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering.
- Henry David Thoreau (Walking)
2 comments:
N-Love this quote. I designed an intro to creative writing class while in school that was organized around the notion of walking. You ought to read Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust when you get a chance. A fascinating chronicle of the history of walking. From T. in Belmont. (Still washing dishes :)
T,
I'd love to know more about this exercise you designed. I've really come to love walking more and more!
Also checked out Wanderlust on books.google.com, and loved what I could find. I had no idea there was a whole host of admirers who had written of this exercise :).
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