Lost and Found

Well, it’s official. I am capable of getting lost in my own bathroom.

Yesterday I decided to walk to my workout at the Talisman Centre. While meandering through Mount Royal rocking to my i-Pod dance playlist, I somehow (I wonder how that happened?) inadvertently made a full circle back to my house, consequently missing my class – and looking like a drowned rat as it had started pouring midway.

Or what I surmise as being halfway, as it is now beyond obvious that I would have no idea what is halfway.

I may be able to navigate superbly around rooms in client’s houses, but seem to lack the necessary skills to manage my neighbourhood, and seemingly other neighbourhoods around the world.

When I tell others of my inbred misfortune, they shake their heads woefully, as a non-existent sense of direction is as incomprehensible to them as reading a map is to me – no less comforting and much more frightening.

Had I been leading the pioneers in Westward Ho!, we would still be going in circles somewhere in New Jersey. I tell people if they want to know what direction to go – go the opposite way that I think it is. Sometimes I follow my own advice and I’m still wrong.

Nevertheless, these episodes make for a ready story when dinner conversation lags, and gives me 622 more words for this discourse.

Besides, nobody wants to hear that – Yes, everything went according to plan.

Where‘s the story in that?

Yes, I can get lost in large elevators. But I do try to stay out of areas with high winds, lots of ice, stairs, and places where there is country and western music. 

I so envy those blessed with an innate sense of direction – people who can find their way back to a Starbucks passed over an hour ago.

By the way, you are the only one I have ever told this to – well, the second – so I would appreciate it if you kept this information under your hat, as it’s not the kind of information that endears one to many.

Kafka, the great patron of self-criticism, captured this pathology perfectly: “There’s only one thing certain. That is one’s own inadequacy.”

It doesn’t help when I ask for directions and they answer with a vague wave of their hand, saying, “Oh, it’s just over there.”

I also have never mastered the adage of “When in doubt, refrain.” or “When lost, go back the way you came.”

But in the end, I may have found more.

Many of us are not very good at looking; we see what we expect to see. We may see it, but we don’t really look at it. This may be from desuetude, denial, or inattention. Or maybe because we cannot risk staring at our own desert places. What are we avoiding/

Our main job is to keep our receiving equipment in good receiving order. Miihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes that it’s such a lucky accident to have been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. Attention is the doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity. To be alive means to respond.
And it’s amazing what you can find by looking.

Like last week. I came across two shops I had not seen before – a butcher shop and a pharmacy. So now if I cut my hand slicing pork chops, I can get some antiseptic and bandages.

The question then, is how to get lost.

There is an art to getting lost, for not knowing what to do. Pre-Socratic philosopher Meno asked, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” The “not knowing” is what drives life. This curiosity is what makes you get up every morning, driving you forward, wondering what’s next.Somewhere in between lies discovery; of places, of ideas, and the store with that great pair of shoes you saw yesterday.