I went for a walk to find an idea. Normally that’s not how it works. I’ll go for a walk, I’ll find an idea; setting out with an actual intention to find an idea felt a little desperate, really, but I wasn’t feeling very well: it had been a tough morning for the novel I’m working on, then I finished a work call that left me anxious, slightly angry, and I had a desire to turn those feelings toward something else, some exertion, and hopefully I’d find an idea of something to write about that had nothing to do with the novel or the anxiety-inducing project. Do you ever feel like you’re in an argument with yourself, that you and the more inner you are in disagreement? I parked at a trailhead two miles from our house, started the most recent podcast episode in my phone and set up the trail. After a few minutes, I’d ignored the podcast—it was a BBC program about a man overcoming the shyness that prevented him from speaking in public—and was walking uphill, through chaparral and sagebrush, past trees and other walkers. I took a picture of some tennis courts concealed in the woods. A dog passed me, followed by a woman jogging in blue shorts and matching top, then a few minutes later I passed them on a hill—the woman had stopped for water—and I’ll admit I felt a small pleasure from pressing on when she’d needed to stop; and immediately I felt small for finding such a thing pleasurable.
I took an inventory of my anxiety, the anger, and kept going.
And none of these things were even close to an idea.
I decided to forget finding an idea. It wouldn’t be that kind of walk; it would be the walk it was. I kept pressing. Out of breath, I started to hear the podcast again. The man was saying he’d found others like him who struggled with their anxiety around public speaking. And he found by practicing with them, putting ideas into words, feelings into speech, testing things aloud in front of people, he’d found community, a larger life. “Life expands or shrinks according to one’s courage,” the man said, quoting Anais Nin, I think, just as I reached the top of the walk, and I wrote that down and put away my headphones. A small outcropping gave a broad view of the Verdugos, the Angeles, the Baldwin Hills, the city overspilling, one neighborhood to the next, in the homes, highway exits, tree roots erupting through the sidewalks; in the smog and the crowd noise; the cars, bicycles, school buses, the women with their drawstring backpacks, a red and purple Southwest plane departing Burbank.
My mind was empty. A group of five crows, a small murder, drifted overhead, only a dozen feet away, and did two or three banking turns, then flew away. I sat on the peak marker. My breathing slowed. A few minutes later, my mind was still empty. Oh, I realized, this is it. This moment. This is the idea.
Book-selling update: As tested last week, with some very nice responses, I’m signing copies of my new book until the first week of December. Very easy: for $30/book (shipping included), I’ll inscribe and send a copy anywhere in the United States. How to:
Reply to this newsletter explaining where you’d like it sent and who you’d like it dedicated to or how you’d like it inscribed. (If someone shared this newsletter with you, you can contact me through my website.)
I’ll send you payment info (Venmo, Paypal, whatever works), and then I’ll send you tracking info once the book is shipped.
Thank you!
From tomorrow’s “Sunday Supplement” newsletter, with recommendations for three things I appreciate (and you might, too):
Someone has told you to do this. Everyone had told me this. Finally I did it, and it wasn’t that bad. Sidebar: did you know you can claim your social security number to help keep it from being hijacked? Seems like a good thing to do before someone else claims yours!
If you’re not subscribed, sign up over here.
What the what? “Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly email published Saturdays by novelist Rosecrans Baldwin about things he finds beautiful. “The Sunday Supplement” is a recommendation bulletin for paying subscribers.
Rosecrans’s new book, Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles, is available from Bookshop, Amazon, or your local store. Any other books mentioned in this newsletter are featured on a Bookshop list.