To know what’s low in the fridge.
To stay on track with assignments.
To keep tabs on projects that won’t be done for months.
To enjoy checking off a task that’s been completed, with all the pleasure of snapping bubble wrap but without the noise.
To perceive a day as rich and full before it even starts.
To know what you’re doing after lunch.
To know where you’ve been recently.
To feel a sense deep down of being ordered, in order to still feel comfortable when the day goes sideways.
To lower your blood pressure.
To give time topography.
To keep track of song lyrics you want to steal for lines of dialogue, with the title of the list being “CHANGE THESE ENOUGH TO DISGUISE THEM”
To keep in mind good things.
To keep in mind important things.
To put into the back of your mind those things you don’t need to think about yet, knowing they will resurface when it’s time.
To remember birthdays.
To make a properly layered sandwich of the week’s responsibilities.
To remember the house-cleaning thing you promised to do and will totally forget.
To see a thing calmly from different sides.
To imagine what you’ll pack for the trip you want to take.
Actually, to take the time to figure out once and for all what exactly is the perfect outfit and bag contents for a 3-7 day trip so you never need to think about it again. (This is my favorite list of all my lists.)
To pretend you’re making progress.
To dissolve an impossible-seeming thing.
To remind yourself of all that which you adore.
To remind yourself why you don’t smoke cigarettes anymore.
To guard from panic.
To name feelings.
To remember feelings.
To keep track of car maintenance.
To track new bands/books/movies/TV/artists/etc, or old ones you haven’t heard/read/seen/etc yet.
To catalog things Flying Lotus/Dennis Cooper/Lucy Sante have heard/read/seen.
To turn vague ideas into drawings, which become words, become sentences, become improved ideas.
To write down things said/mentioned/referenced by teenagers or early twenty-somethings at a party with the title of the list being “GOOGLE WHAT IS THIS.”
To figure out a difficult decision.
To remember cool words.
To figure out how you feel about someone.
To figure out that you should just go ahead and marry that someone someday if you get the opportunity. (I wrote a list like this the morning after the first night I met my wife.)
To stay on top of medications.
To stay on top of loved ones’ medications.
To not forget the shortbread cookies.
(Yesterday, I forgot the shortbread cookies.)
To not forget the shortbread cookies.
In tomorrow’s Sunday supplement for supporters: New music for working (that isn’t just noise), compelling short films about major cities, and a profile of a genuinely interesting person.
If you’re not on the supporter train yet, hit the blue button. There’s a free trial so you can dip into the archive and see if it’s for you.
Meditations in an Emergency is a micro-essay published Saturdays by novelist Rosecrans Baldwin about things he finds beautiful, with a longer essay once a month for subscribers, sent from the woods.
Also for subscribers: a Sunday supplement, three weeks a month, with three-plus ideas of things to love, no paid placements lol 💀
Rosecrans is the bestselling author of Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles, available from Bookshop, Amazon, or (preferably) your local store. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
Any other books mentioned in this newsletter are featured on a Bookshop list.
Very familiar, thanks for the reminder to keep a list today.