sending the pent-up outside

“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”

―Werner Herzog

**The audio recording of this Morton Train is available to paid subscribers here.**

Early on in the pandemic, during the period known as lockdown, the hiking trails in Los Angeles County were closed for a month and a half. Since moving to L.A. a few years before, I’d gotten into the habit of hiking a strenuous 4-mile trail in Griffith Park at least once a week. When that hike was made unavailable to me, it became apparent just how much I needed it - for both my physical and mental health. I had to find a new place to hike, and soon.

I was living in a neighborhood called Atwater Village and, when driving home at night, would often notice a lit-up cross on top of a seemingly nearby hill. I never gave it much thought until one morning in March of 2020. With no hiking trail to trek upon, I decided to - without the use of a map - make the top of that hill my destination. Not knowing where or what it was exactly, I set off walking toward it.

After a mile of streets and sidewalks, passing by several closed shops, I arrived at the grand entrance of Forest Lawn Memorial Park & Cemetery on the border of Glendale. The cross on the hilltop ceased being my specific destination when I realized just how much more there was to explore in that sprawling place - a labyrinth, a replica of a 17th century Scottish chapel, a wishing chair, sculptures of all sizes, the graves of many Hollywood luminaries, and a garden named “the Mystery of Life.”

Outside of the Great Mausoleum - which was, of course, closed to visitors at the time - I became particularly captivated with an enormous stone tablet that was engraved with the Builder’s Creed. It reads in part, “On this New Year’s Day, 1917… I shall endeavor to build Forest Lawn … as unlike other cemeteries as sunshine is unlike darkness … filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful statuary, cheerful flowers, noble memorial architecture with interiors full of light and color … I believe these things educate and uplift a community. Forest Lawn shall become a place … where artists study and sketch … where the sorrowing will be soothed and strengthened.”

The long proclamation is signed simply: “The Builder.”

So just as I was adjusting to the confining strangeness of lockdown, isolation, and a virtual social life, I happened upon a place designed-visioned-intended over a century ago to uplift the spirit and delight the senses, even in the presence of death.

I returned there often that year.

***

Though we are not in the time of lockdown & social isolation anymore, there is a very real pent-upness to life in 2026. We, individually and collectively, are restless & overwhelmed & angry & devastated & inspired all at the same time.

We may not be pent up in our homes as much as in our minds these days. That’s what happens with information overload, compassion fatigue, helplessness in the face of pervasive wrong-doing, and having damn good ideas that we - for whatever reason - cannot implement.

Last fall, a high school counselor in Maine made national news when she did something radical. She offered the teens in after-school detention the option of going on a hike in the woods with her instead of sitting for hours at their desks. Several kids took her up on that offer and, afterward, described the experience as awesome.

Perhaps this counselor could see that there’s something precious about the pent-up energy in us humans. That we must treat it with respect, turn it into fuel, and give it space & time to move about and discover - take in - the world around us. (What a gift she gave to those kids!)

I can’t help but wonder if this precious pent-up energy of 2026 - yours & mine & ours - is ready for new vistas, metaphoric and otherwise. Maybe all we have to do now is walk out the door.