I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
These words from Henry David Thoreau fit this new experiment of my life quite aptly. The difference is that I left the woods, or the farmlands rather, of the Helderberg Hilltowns and moved instead deep into the heart of a city. The city is Schenectady, nestled along the banks of the Mohawk River in Upstate New York, and I now reside in its oldest neighborhood, known as The Stockade.
