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Chicago, IL – During yesterday’s walk, I thought a lot about paths. I found I had a few choices as I walked along the lakeshore. There was a path close to the seawall. There were the rocks that make up the seawall. There was a wide strip of grass along the gravel pathway. There was the gravel pathway. There was the Lakeshore Trail. Which one to take?

I like the feeling of being near a lakeshore; that is something I can also do at home. So I started off on that path. Along the way, I came across a man who had a portable speaker playing his music. It wasn’t loud, but I veered off the path and began to travel on the wider strip of grass (not quite grass yet this time of year). The path led me under trees and such, and felt soft under my feet. It wasn’t perfectly level, but that was OK.

I found myself walking parallel with a young girl who appeared to be of high school age. She had a backpack on, and she was walking closer to the shoreline. Some other people were coming up the opposite direction, so I had to make a choice: get closer to the shoreline, or move to the gravel path. I chose the latter. The gravel path was wide and even, and a little harder underfoot. I moved to the right side of this path, farther from the lake.

There was a path I wanted to take that led up a small incline, but the high schooler had already claimed this route, so I stayed on the gravel. The gravel led to a sidewalk, the smoothest but hardest surface I had walked on. It was on this path that I reached the halfway point of my walk, so I made a wide turn across a small field, and found myself on beach sand.

The sand proved to be the toughest surface on which to walk. Your feet sink in, and it’s an effort to push off. Fortunately, the sand did not last too long, and I walked on a sidewalk around a small parking lot.

From there, I was able to get on that high ridge path that the high schooler had been on. There was a wide walking path as well as a rutted bike path up here. The little bit of height felt nice. The water was clear blue, with most of the ice melted away. Only some very large ice mounds remained right on the shoreline; large, mud-covered blocks of frozen water hanging, waiting to fall. There was a small flock of geese seemingly practicing their take-offs and landings into the lake.

The mound trail ended, and I descended onto the grassy strip once again. I began to notice the unevenness a bit more under my feet, making me pay some attention to where I was placing my feet as I trudged along. Roots, small holes, little depressions, stones and twigs, all played a part in how I placed one foot in front of the other. The man with the music was still there as I walked by, this time indulging in a little pungent weed. I felt the urge to ask for a toke.

I arrived back at the car after this 30-minute sojourn, a bit winded, but feeling pretty good. All I had really done was travel in a fairly straight line, first south, then north, taking whatever path I found most reasonable and would keep me socially distanced from people. But by the end, I felt like I had traveled a lifetime.

Life is a straight line, from one year to the next, with no deviation. It’s only a matter of which paths you choose to take that offers variety. Some paths are even, some not. Some are hard, some soft and muddy. Some paths offer better views than others. Some paths offer more solitude, some less. One moves south in the early years, but eventually you take a big turn and begin moving north. You end up where you began: helpless, feeble, in need of others to supply your needs and wants. You wonder about all the paths you didn’t take, couldn’t take. You think you’ll get on those paths tomorrow, until you run out of tomorrows.

That was my walk yesterday – 30 minutes of choosing paths. Whatever your path is these days, tread it lightly, and tread it safely. -twl

Chicago, IL – I’ve been writing for a while in different locations. Lately I’ve taken experimental stabs at Substack, Tiny Letter, and a not-online journal. Each one is a piece of something, but the parts do not yet seem to make a whole. In this pandemic time, I seem to lack a muse.

Rosehill Cemetery

There are other names for this sensation, but I think it stems from one thing – isolation, especially from nature. Being in Chicago for the past two months has led me to understand that I need that connection to nature perhaps more than I realize. The best I can do here is walk in the nearby cemetery – Rosehill Cemetery – which has a fantastic natural feel to it. Yet it’s not quite enough. Perhaps the lack of a natural setting combined with not being in my own space is sort of a one-two punch when it comes to this lack of inspiration.

I’ve always been someone who generally tends to improvise, so to speak. It’s probably why I like short-form writing more so than anything that takes time. I can be inspired to write an essay, or a journal entry, or a haiku, and when I get that inspiration, it does not take long to write the piece. Even this essay has been essentially inspired by recent thoughts, particularly about the fact that haikus have not been coming to me in the way they were even a year ago. I think that lack of inspiration is the most telling – the inability to feel haikus. When my view is an alley, and my daily walks are surrounded by headstones and grave markers, perhaps my sense of inspiration has gone dry. Spontaneity requires stimulation, and at least for the two months I have been in Chicago, stimulation has been lacking.

And truthfully, so has motivation. The ongoing pandemic and “shelter in place” routine has begun to sap me of motivation. Winter does that as well. So has living in a small apartment space (which is not truly small, but not as spacious-feeling as a house). All these things have combined to snuff out inspiration and motivation. Without these two elements, how does one write anything worthwhile?

There is one victory – I write every day now. Somewhere. It is now a habit of mine to sit down with my morning coffee and write. Something. Somewhere. I was even going to take this morning off, but I found I could not. I made my coffee, grabbed a muffin, and here I am banging away at the computer keyboard, writing this essay about how writing has become difficult. Perhaps it’s just the haikus I miss the most (I do miss those. It’s not for lack of trying.).  Perhaps it’s because the ultimate goals of writing are not clear yet for me. What are my strengths as a writer? What’s my best form? What would be my best subject? All of these questions linger there, waiting for answers. I also wonder if, at my age, it’s already too late. Would I have been a better writer 15 years ago, when I was more sure of myself and my viewpoints?

If a muse serves any purpose, it’s to provide motivation during dry times. I had come to think that nature was serving as my muse, and perhaps I’ve been right about that. But the last half of 2020 was tough to get through; my mind was unsettled, and to some degree still remains so. I always get this sense that I have to wait until a certain period of time passes, such as when I finally get back home. Then I can be more creative. But deep down I really don’t think that’s true. I suspect writers have their own tricks to get through dry times, but of course one of them is to keep writing – something, anything. So far I’ve been successful at that, and perhaps while drifting down this particular river I’ll arrive somewhere where inspiration is a little more abundant. I’d like to feel again what it’s like to write a few good haikus.  -twl