鈥淵ou can鈥檛 swim there.鈥�

The lifeguard addressing me聽was just a teenager. It wasn鈥檛 his fault. I should listen to him聽and go home. But I was already up to my hips in the water. He cleared his throat. Please, don鈥檛 say it again, I thought. God, he was going to say it again.

鈥淪ir,鈥� his voice cracked. 鈥淢ister, you can鈥檛 swim there!鈥�

Most teenagers around Concord, Massachusetts, are incredibly polite,聽which is to say scared speechless most of the time. He was just doing his job. I should have been kinder. I should have explained to him that 鈥渃an鈥檛鈥� wasn鈥檛 exactly the right word, that I most assuredly could swim right here, that I鈥檝e been doing it for many years鈥攅very day, actually, between the months of April and November. I should have quoted : 鈥淕o confidently in the direction of your dreams.鈥�

I now regret the gesture I made with my hand. What I do not regret is taking off. If you swim around Walden Pond without cutting any corners, it is 1.48 miles. I usually take this route, skirting the shores where Thoreau sauntered beginning in March 1845. It takes me a little over 36 minutes. This time I went straight across. The lifeguard would have to take the dinghy if he wanted to physically stop me.

I know all of this sounds incredibly petty, like a philosophy professor having a temper tantrum when he is denied a nerdy pleasure or his intellectual birthright. It sounds petty, maybe downright stupid, because on some level it probably is. But I would contend that stupid behavior is sometimes the proper response to stupid laws. Last month the Massachusetts state legislature responded to a spate of drownings by banning open-water swimming in all state-owned bodies of water, including Walden Pond. I know drowning is tragic and horrific: it came close to happening to me as a kid, swimming in the Pacific, and I鈥檝e been part of several successful saves鈥攁nd one that failed.

But I also know the legislature could have attempted to curb the drownings in other ways, like redoubling lifeguard training, or providing swim instruction to the landlocked, or even insisting that swimmers wear yellow inflation devices when they brave the high seas. I get it鈥攚e have to wear seat belts. A little paternalism is a smart way to mitigate unnecessary risks. Mountain climbing is dangerous. Mountain biking is dangerous. Football is dangerous. Skiing is dangerous. Open-water swimming is dangerous. Life is dangerous. Maybe the point of being human is to take necessary precautions and face these challenges deliberately.

Thoreau went to this pond to 鈥渓ive deliberately,鈥� to live deeply so as to avoid the danger that we all face鈥攄iscovering at the end that we haven鈥檛 lived. Last year, after bypass surgery at the age of 40, I came to this pond in a wetsuit on the front edge of April. The water was 58 degrees, which is to say dangerously cold. I slipped in and started to swim as best I could with a sternum that had been hacked apart a month before. I got 30 seconds in, gasped, gagged, and flipped over on my back. And I decided at that moment, on that day, I really couldn鈥檛 swim across Walden. It is a decision that many people have made, and should continue to make. But it is a decision that I would still like to have, for the many days when I can and do swim in the pond.

I was halfway across. I popped up to see if I was alone. My lifeguard was nowhere in sight. The dinghy was still firmly affixed at the boat launch.

I am not for one second suggesting that my swim was some grand act of civil disobedience. When Thoreau wrote the essay 鈥淐ivil Disobedience鈥� while living at Walden, he was protesting gross injustice鈥攕lavery and imperialism. He refused to pay his taxes because he refused to support a government that had lost its moral compass. He was thrown into jail as a result of this refusal, and made the argument that jail was the only appropriate place for a person of character in unethical times. It was something like Martin Luther King Jr. saying that while we have a moral obligation to follow just laws, we have an equal obligation to break unjust ones.

My minor protest in the waters of Walden wasn鈥檛 like this. There are more important things to protest than a philosophy professor鈥檚 right to ply his way across a body of water in search of enlightenment. That being said, swimming in Walden, across Walden, will remain a simple, joyful freedom in a modern life that tends toward restriction and convention. And my refusal to listen to the polite young man awakened something like moral indignation in a mind that tends toward the amorality of private and privileged life. Protesting wasn鈥檛 so hard or so scary. There are things in life I care enough about to get in trouble defending. This was one of them. Perhaps there are others I should consider.

Five hundred dollars鈥攖hat鈥檚 the fine for open-water swimming in public waters in Massachusetts. For better or for worse, I will never find out what happens to criminal trespassers at Walden. Three days after the altercation with my teenage guardian, the open-water swimming law was overturned鈥攂ut just for Walden. Fifteen thousand signatures on a petition of protest swayed the governor. In the end, I wasn鈥檛 alone in the middle of that pond, but I will always be glad that in a passing moment of protest I felt like I was. Some limits are worth trespassing. I plan on swimming tomorrow at 6 A.M.鈥攚ith my bright yellow, state-mandated buoy.

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