I could recommend baking, because that’s something I do when I need to be active but mindless. I could recommend driving while listening to music, because that tends to free me from compulsive concerns about productivity. I could recommend hanging out with my kids, who are teenagers now, and having electric conversations with them about books, or stories and poems they’re writing, because that is invigorating. But the most sustaining practice for my writing over several decades has been being outside, walking. This activity calms me and dispels some of my brain’s natural agitation; it allows me to really slow down, see the world and its details, and think. I usually fit in several walks during the day, but since I’m also working and can’t be away long, I tend to travel the same rectangular pathway in my neighborhood over and over. This may sound repetitive or bleak, but I love looking carefully at each house, walking down each alley, studying people opening car doors, seeing the way a garage is leaning and decaying, or the way a clematis winds through a chain-link fence, or watching someone standing in yellow light on the other side of a window. It’s always reliably inspiring.
—Amy Stuber, author of Sad Grownups (Stillhouse Press, 2024)
Photo credit: Matt Patterson