The Search & Rescue of Ideas

Last week I did a search and rescue of a backpack...
"You better take daddy," my son (the owner of the pack) said. "And a flashlight. And a ladder."
I drew the line at the ladder. I wasn't planning on scaling any 8ft fences...although the school where we headed was surrounded by them.
My son has been traveling all over the Bay Area this year with his soccer team, because some joker in a pick-up did donuts on our school field. Last week, we went to a huge, well-locked school in the city. (For the game we accessed the soccer field by sneaking through the gym where a volleyball game was in session.). In the excitement of a hard-fought win, my son forgot his backpack.
When my husband and I arrived in the dark,we were in luck. That gym was still open (some poor kids were still playing volleyball at 9:30pm) and we snuck through to the field. As soon as we exited the gym, though, CLICK, the doors locked behind us.
We searched over every blade of grass. No backpack.
“Let’s go,“ I suggested, heading back towards the gym. I hoped that there would be some straggling volleyball enthusiasts who would answer our frantic knock.
“We came all the way out here,“ my husband said. “Let’s just look a bit more.”
I followed--not with much hope. We walked through the basketball courts, the playground, past several more locked entrances, by several classrooms. No backpack. We continued to a huge entrance, obviously locked, the whole time laughing about how this security was unbelievable. Perhaps we should have brought that ladder.
Just as we reached the gate, a car pulled up. My first thought was that unlike our school where derelicts do donuts, this school probably had cameras. Surely police had been alerted to two suspicious trespassers.
A young woman emerged from her car. But instead of barraging us with questions, she unlocked the gate.
“I’m just here to pick up some work I forgot,” she said, as if WE deserved an explanation.
‘That was amazing,” my husband said when we were walking, free at last, back to our car.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “All that security. It felt like a prison.”
“Not that,” he said. “When we needed to get out, a woman came out of nowhere to the exact gate where we stood.”
The search and rescue of the backpack reminded me of the search and rescue of writing ideas. I’m often struck by how when I’m totally lost about where to go next in my story, the answer comes. It’s not necessarily inspiration. I still have to check every blade of grass, walk through playgrounds and basketball courts, and reach the point of exhaustion (or pass it). But the gatekeeper eventually appears to set me free.
What's your experience?

Books of the Week:
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
This took a while to get going, as it's an unusual voice. You feel like you're attending a one-man show, as the character describes the setting, what the other characters are doing, etc. The story is of a Pakistani Princeton graduate who is offered a top position in the New York business world. Then 9/11 happens, and this perfect world he's been invited to join reveals cracks...too many of them. It's a fascinating story. Once you get started, it becomes an all-night read.

Raise Rules For Women by Jill Ferguson and Laura C Browne.
I'm ashamed at how fearful I was to read this book--it's been on my shelf for months--as if the contents would reveal that I really wasn't that strong and modern. Rather than shaming me (although at times I cringed,) the pointers offered gave me insight and information I can carry about getting the monetary validation I deserve. A helpful read.