Echoes of Walden: How We Escaped Our Life of Quiet Desperation...And What We Learned Along the Way

By Caroline D. Grimm

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Henry David Thoreau, Walden What if you could trade your life of quiet desperation for a life of quiet inspiration? If you could sell everything you own and take to the open road in an RV, would you do it? Author Caroline Grimm and her husband, Mike Corthell did just that. In 2018, Grimm was grieving and exhausted, and longing to find more time for what mattered. Together, the couple hatched a plan to leave behind a life that left them feeling overwhelmed and unfulfilled. They sold their house and most of their possessions, bought a travel trailer, and headed out to explore the country. Grimm, a nearly lifelong student of Walden, Henry David Thoreau's masterpiece, drew inspiration and courage from Thoreau's enduring lessons. She insightfully strikes at the heart of the problems of modern life that leave so many feeling a sense of quiet desperation. She asks (and often answers) the questions that lay behind the modern day problems that plague so many of us. Confronting economic inequality, social ills, the American health care crisis and our individual roles in it, the illnesses caused by a lifestyle that fuels a life of fatigue and misery, and the environmental and social disaster of factory farming, she explores the underlying causes of our sense of desperation and despair. As you follow the couple's journey from "sticks and bricks" living to full-time RV living, you'll get a taste for what it's like to downsize, minimize, and economize belongings to find a way to fit two humans, two cats, and a dog into 240 square feet of mobile living space. You'll catch a glimpse of the emotional toll our lives take on us through the constant work and worry and day-to-day just getting by. This is a book about "What ifs." What if we walked away from a life that isn't working for us? What if we worked towards a creating a life of purpose and meaning? What if we questioned everything we've ever been taught about what life is? What if we had the courage and the dogged determination to create a life of peace, joy, adventure, and travel? From the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain in Maine to the desert of New Mexico to the splendor of the Grand Canyon, she searches for her own healing and a new sense of "quiet inspiration." This is the story of their journey so far and the essential truths they discovered along the way.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1077410042
• ISBN13: 9781077410046
• Release Date: July 2019
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.4" x 6.0"