Wonder emerges when we engage with the world.

Last weekend, I went on a first date with a man who handed me a small Moleskine notebook and a pen. He had one too.

We were standing in downtown Berkeley, just beginning our evening, when he said, “As we walk around tonight, every time we arrive at an intersection, I want you to stop and notice what question arises for you. Write it down. I’ll do the same. But we’re not going to share our questions with each other. I have a plan for that for another time.”

I was delighted. “Are we going to put all the questions together and make an exquisite corpse poem?”

He smiled at me with wide-eyed delight. “Does your brain work the same way as mine?” he asked.

And so I noticed that someone had etched their name into the cement at the first intersection. “Who is Carlos?” I wrote in my notebook.

At another intersection, I noticed an ancient black metal box that had “Police telephone” etched on it. “Is a police telephone for the public to call the police? Or for the police to call more police?” I wrote this down too.

Suddenly the world became a playground of hidden messages and riddles to be solved.

For the past several months, I’ve been working hard. Teaching. Writing. Creating. Managing the practical realities of life and business and motherhood. And somewhere along the way, I became a bit too serious. Head down, just getting it done. Slipping into bed obscenely early, getting up at 5am to do it all over again. And I wasn’t depressed, but life started to feel flat.

And then I remembered fun. And that without it, I have nothing to say! And without it, I can feel like I am just surviving my life instead of truly living it.

So I declared a season of fun! And started saying yes to invitations:

• A Friday night dance party by Lake Merritt where I danced harder than I have in years.

• An evening listening to Rebecca Solnit and Saul Williams speak.

• A full moon silent disco with my studio mates.

• A book event (with the author of Yesteryear!)

• A date with a new kindred spirit friend.

Julia Cameron has been talking about this for decades through the practice of Artist Dates. Those little solo adventures that fill the well and remind us that creativity isn’t just about making things. It’s also about experiencing things.

I’m realizing that’s exactly what this season of fun has been for me - a season of filling the well. A season of gathering new textures, conversations, ideas, images, music, stories, and experiences.

Because if we’re always creating and never taking anything in, eventually we’re trying to make something from nothing.

We need something to respond to. Something to bump up against. Something to fall in love with. Something to wonder about.

Whether you call it fun, play, adventure, or artist dates, I think the invitation is the same:

• Start a book club.

• Take a class.

• Go dancing.

• Attend a lecture.

• Visit a neighborhood you’ve never explored.

• Spend an afternoon in a museum.

• Take a long walk somewhere unfamiliar.

• Sit in a café without your laptop.

• Give wonder a chance to find you.

Because while insight sometimes arrives at our desks, I’ve noticed that wonder is often somewhere beyond them. It can be simple. Maybe it’s the conversation you overheard at the post office, or the stranger in line at the grocery store that tells you a story you will never forget.

What has been feeding your sense of wonder lately? What small adventure might be waiting just outside your front door?