Wandering by Bea Tifton

 

In the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf said, “Not all those who wander are lost.” Well, yes. Except me. I am definitely lost. Again.

I have absolutely no sense of direction.

Now, people who have a great sense of direction cannot comprehend how I can drive to a place three times (or more) and still need directions. I had a friend who yelled, “North. North. How can you not know what direction that is?” when I was driving once and she was loathe to give me directions. Again. We remained friends but from then on, she drove, and we didn’t speak of it again.

Construction can throw me so much that I can’t always recover. I was supposed to go to training once in a nearby city. We were going to get a nice dinner and it would have been wonderful. Would have been. These were the days when I had a printed set of Mapsco directions and a fervent prayer. I missed a highway exit and I missed the meeting.

Those freakish people who can go to a place once and always remember how to get there are great to have around, but they puzzle me. My uncle was that way. My cousin is that way. I cannot even imagine how that would be, but I would love it. My best friend has no sense of direction, either, so it’s the blind leading the blind. We laugh and laugh as we blunder through the city and we’ve seen some interesting things. My mother is very tolerant of my lack of direction and we, too, have seen some interesting things.

Let’s talk gps. When I discovered that my phone had a maps app, it was as though a shaft of light shone right down on my phone and I swear I heard the angels sing. I try not to be overly dependent on it, but it’s so nice to know that I will get to my chosen location. And if I’m out and decide it’s time to fuel up, or go to the bank, or get ice cream, you know, the really important things, while I’m out doing errands, I can just put that new location into my phone and find it.

As a teacher researching my students’ special needs, I found out that some people say not having any sense of direction is a learning disability.  I can believe it. I know that I can’t help it. I’ve gotten better than I used to be, but I still heavily rely on gps. And why not? But I still take time to wander at times to discover things I’ve never seen and had no idea that they even existed. Sometime I’ll do a blog about that.

But now I need to go get some ice cream, er, to do an important errand. And I can definitely find the ice cream place from my house.

Pexels.com Credits:

Andrew Neel "Assorted Map Pieces"

Leah Kelley "Woman Looking at the Map"

cottonbro studio "Two Women Riding in Car Laughing"

James Lee "Photo of Parking for Aliens Only Signage"

cottonbro studio "Ghosts Outdoors"

Brett Sayles "A White Horse Dressed in Flowers"

Megan (Markham) Bucknall "Woman Wearing Brown Coat During Daytime"