Sixty minutes by a reservoir
Another bout of focus aerobics
At least two conversations I overhear are about the finale of White Lotus.
The more interesting one involves two thirty-something women walking side-by-side, in black leggings and tan sweatshirts, one says as she passes, “I would’ve freaked out if they killed the younger brother.”
“Yeah but it was him or the chick with teeth,” the other says. “You can’t let the two innocents survive.”
Regular readers of this newsletter know occasionally I spend an hour somewhere noticing things, writing down as much as possible. This Wednesday, I went to a reservoir—Greater Los Angeles has several, I went to the one in Silver Lake—and spent an hour at sunrise walking around, sitting on benches, eyes and ears attuned.
Some observations:
—The most popular look for females: black sunglasses, black leggings, white sneakers and white socks, with the socks worn high above the ankle.
—Most popular look for males: facial hair.
—Diversity of people, diversity of ages, diversity of dogs. So much rambunctious bird song, it competes with cars and distant trains. I take a bench facing the sun. A few feet away, a garbage can supplies rot smells and gnats, a swarm of them looping in circuits, as if rising and falling on thermal gusts.
What do gnats desire? Do gnats desire? I try counting them and stop around twenty.
I’m getting up to find another bench when a young woman jogs by—long braids, brown leggings, white sneakers with striped socks—and one of her braids falls off at my feet, resembling a small snake.
—On the trail, I pass an older women walking with a middle-aged woman, perhaps mother and daughter. The older woman says, “I don’t mind losing the weight, it means I get to wear some of my old clothes.”
“Well, that’s nice,” her companion says.
“But honestly,” the older woman says, “some of them are pretty ugly.”
—Five minutes later, I pass two women in their early twenties, both with pronounced vocal fry. One is saying, “This allergy season is like a quadruple pandemic.”
“I feel like I was washing my hands all the time,” the other says, “but then I fell off.”
—Busybody hack: Apple AirPod Pro 2s, tuned to transparency mode, are really good for eavesdropping.
—I sit on a bench facing the reservoir. I count four ducks. A breeze ruffles sections of the water but not others, reminding me that wind moves in channels—how mysterious, wind, the breezes that only last a few hours, “global winds,” “trade winds,” caused by pressures I can’t see. As a kid, I found wind super confusing. As an adult, nothing’s changed.
The sun lights up a large window across the water, in a house on a distant hill, and turns it blindingly white, into a small sun.
—From the other overheard White Lotus conversation: “I don’t know what it says about me, but Walton Goggins is hot.”
—The reservoir is two concrete-lined basins that provide water to local homes. A barbed-wire fence prevents me from approaching. The water looks low, though what do I know? Around the perimeter are dog parks and trails, a meadow for picnics and many trees: black walnut, palm, sycamore, Virginia pine.
An older lady walks by, fully shielded from the sun: long sleeves, baggy pants, enormous visor. Later on the walk, an older guy jogs by me in short shorts, no shirt, with a Covid mask grasping his chin.
—There are signs on the reservoir fence that say “no signs allowed,” but everywhere there are stickers. On one of the “no signs allowed” signs, a small one is placed at the bottom: “Directed by David Lynch.”
RIP.
I see the same stickers in several places with a QR code beneath an all-caps heading: HOW TO MEET A MAN ON THE INTERNET. I scan the code and it leads me to a website—
Finding a good man is hard enough, but finding one on the Internet? It’ll make you give up on dating entirely. Meghan Crumley’s zine HOW TO MEET A MAN ON THE INTERNET is 38 palm-sized pages of practical, empathetic advice with a sense of humor that sure helps when you're sending your billionth dating app message.
At this point, I’m about forty-five minutes in, and it makes me think of three other conversations I’ve overheard so far:
Two young men walking together, walking dogs, and one says to the other, “She’s like, ‘I want this and this and this and this,’ but honestly I think she just wants us to spend time together.”
Three young women slowly jogging, one of them with a dog, and one says loudly, “She gets crazy drunk and she’s like, ‘why am I even getting married?!’”
Two young women walking together, no dogs, and one says, “It’s hard to get into any emotion when you got got.”
—More trends spotted: Females of all ages watching their phones while walking. Males of all ages watching their phones while walking. Several people conducting calls on speakerphone, holding their phones parallel to the ground, inches from their lips, as if the phones are pieces of toast, literal toast they’re about to eat.
—At the end of the hour, at my fourth bench, a young woman goes by, pushing a stroller, with a small dog trotting beside. As they pass, the toddler in the stroller locks eyes with me. I notice it’s clutching a dandelion and I feel cheered. I smile. I wave. The toddler does not smile or wave. I notice I feel slightly manipulated.
I get up to leave the reservoir a minute later. A man in his thirties is walking toward me with a twenty-something-year-old woman. The man is saying angrily, “This year I’m like fuck no I’m not paying taxes.”
“Yeah, I hear that,” the woman says sweetly, supportively, and takes his hand.
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“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from writer Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo.
Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles, winner of the California Book Award. 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.
For books, articles, bio, and contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com.
great writing exercise. It's not Paris, but it is a reservoir