Friday, August 9, 2013

The absent walk report: 080813

Indiscipline...

It was about 9:30 PM when I was about to sit down to write a brief note about my brief walk yesterday. Then I looked at my bed, it was much more inviting than my desk chair.

Yesterday I was up slightly before 5 AM, coffee was ready and I was working on waking up before preparing to head for downtown Los Angeles (36.8 km or 22.9 miles) to visit the Superior Courthouse once again. The plan was to get there early, line up for the 7:30 opening of the court and then hustle to the 4th floor to be one of eight lucky attendees for the weekly Probate Workshop at 8 AM. Fun huh?

Waking up meant preparing a list of items for the workshop and in doing so, with the assistance of my good friend "Joe," I found myself answering my own questions. About 30 minutes in I started to realize time would be better spent at home, get myself to the next level and use the workshop next week if I get stuck again.

There's a modest lesson in this, it's something I apply all of the time to creative work, bottlenecks I run into there and especially in my aesthetic relationship with a creative project. Which really means my liking something I'm working on. I'm still learning how to apply this to other exercises in life, things like this probate, things that are thrust upon me which I find to be confusing or otherwise bothersome... I have to remove myself from the element(s) I find intimidating, break everything down and research each piece of the puzzle and then see if any of the pieces fit. Stand back and then circle the enemy. I have to become "indisciplined" and remove the restraint before I can step back inside, become disciplined and discover the solution.

The walk: Phase II of yesterday ended less than 30 minutes before deciding to hit the sack. I spent most of the day looking for one of three people. One of them I know is dead but I still had reason to find him. Finally, about 7:15 PM, I believed I had found the person I needed to find, almost 2 hours later I took a 600 km leap and got an update with a phone number and two addresses. The walk was well before this. I went to a house I could feel I had been inside at some time in my life. A house nearby, only blocks away and directly across from the elementary school I attended. It was the home of a friend of my mother's. One of the witnesses of the signing of her will. I ended up leaving a note on their front door. At 11 PM I was awoken by a phone call and a message to my Google Voice number finding out that the house was a dead end but that was okay, I had already found my direction.



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