Some time ago I discovered an idea that changed how I think about making art, and eventually, how I think about everything else too.

Julia Cameron describes it in her well-known book The Artist's Way: physically, we have to breathe in before we can breathe out. She applies this specifically to creative inspiration, and the word itself backs her up. "Inspire" comes from the Latin inspirare - to breathe into, to blow into.

Sometimes when I'm out walking the creek trails, I find myself stopping and just staring, taking in whatever is in front of me without quite knowing why.

A few days ago it was a beautiful live oak that the trail edges under. The branches curve around the path in a way that draws you in, most of them draping all the way to the ground, with one low branch that makes a perfectly good bench. I've walked under this tree more times than I can count and stopped more than a few.

Have you ever had one of those days where everything seems to break at once, and you start wondering if there's something in the cosmic air?

I had a couple of those recently.

It started when I was driving to my first class of the semester, in hundred-and-some degree heat, and my car's air conditioner broke. I arrived a little sweaty but still half an hour early, with plenty of time to get ready, or so I thought.

This past weekend I got to spend time with family at the beach. By the time I arrived, I was frazzled and overwhelmed; the travel, the hunt for parking, the general busyness of the week before had all caught up with me.

My head was pounding, even though I'd eaten and taken something for the pain. All I wanted was to walk the surf alone and shake off the stress.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Theodore Roosevelt said that, a man who also happened to be one of the greatest conservationists this country has ever known. It feels like exactly the right reminder for right now.

When you are feeling overwhelmed, everything can feel like too much, too big, too far beyond your reach to do anything about. The news, the world, the to-do list, the state of things, all of it pressing in at once.