If you take a walk and come home with one good sentence, the walk was worth it. And what if you don’t find it? Even then, you will have moved and been in the world which never goes to waste. On top of that, if you are keen to look around even a couple of times, you will learn that good, even great, sentences live everywhere. Some are on a street hawker’s cart, and there is one tucked in the moment when a child thumps on a metal staircase because they love the sound. I’d argue you’d find one in terrible service at a cafe, and then, you will find some in the trees around us.
To create anything in this world, we must be a part of it. We must learn to realise our place in the vast connections of life, and we must, sometimes, learn to navigate them. Good for us, there are streets and sidewalks. And a lot of us, not to our blame, start looking for things elsewhere. There is nothing here, in this town, in this city, so I must go to a beach far away, a distant hill, or a lonely island. But what you cannot see where you are will always be invisible irrespective of where you go. That is true, and poets have written ballads more harmonious than any sentence I can write about it today. I can only try to look around and find a sentence. When I think of my place here, that is what I think of, nothing else.
Just today, when I was walking down the street, a man stopped and asked me for directions. I named a popular place nearby, assuming he might know it and that may help him find where he is going. He told me it was his first month in the city and that he did not know the place yet. Then, he laughed and said, “Soon, I will know my way around these streets as long as I keep losing myself.” And that was when I knew the walk was worth it. I helped him with where he had to go, and then I went on my way, which was to nowhere in particular, of course. I was only searching to belong.