On Getting Lost

I recently finished The Terror, a fictionalized re-telling of the lost Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage in the mid-1800's. It was gripping and made me want to be a sailor in Her Majesty's Royal Navy.

I recently skimmed an article in this month's GQ discussing the pervasiveness of GPS systems and the decline in actual maps. I only skimmed because I can't stand the sort of scolding tone authors take when they are reminiscing about the "good old days;" the self-indulgence of placing themselves among a select and dying breed who "remember when."

And so, I've been thinking about being and getting lost.

A few times a week I go on Wandering Bike Rides. I just pick a direction and start pedaling, choosing roads and turns at random. These WBR's are much more interesting in Athens than they were in Marion where all the county roads are basically set up in a grid. That, and despite living in Athens for almost 3 years (and being a bi-monthly visitor for 2 years before that), I still don't have my internal compass configured for SE Ohio. It's like there's a giant magnet underneath Court Street that sets my needle spinning. Or maybe it's the fact that State Street runs parallel and perpendicular to Court, or that you have to go south to go north on the highway. Either way, unless I'm standing in front of my apartment or the sun is rising/setting on a clear day, I couldn't find north by northwest no matter how insistently James Mason asked.

When I set out on these bike rides it's usually just me, my water bottle, and occasionally the i-pod. Roomie and my parents are constantly admonishing me to take my cell phone but where's the fun in that? Chances are there wouldn't be any service as far out into the country as I ride anyway. And so I have little moments of discovery and adventure and occasional panic.

I have discovered New Marshfield and Fox Lake and an llama farm.

I have discovered (often when it's too late to hop off my bike and walk) some of the steepest, gravel-covered hills I've seen outside of Tibetan documentaries.

I have had dogs chase me, squirrels attempt to trip me, cows and horses and chickens and people on farm equipment watch me with indifferent and/or bemused eyes.

I have been caught in the rain; in the snow; having to walk two miles back to town with a flat.

I have gotten up close to 40MPH riding down hill only to realize later that people have died in car crashes at that speed and they're buckled into steel cages.

But I've never been really lost. Oh, there have been times that I didn't really know where I was; didn't know if turning left or right would lead me closer or farther from home, but turning around and backtracking was always a possibility. Sometimes I'll get to the top of a hill and be able to see for miles around me and I'll try to imagine what it must have felt like when there were no roads cutting through, no farmland breaks in the forest. I've ridden through some densely-wooded areas and I think it must have been awful and awe-ful and wonderful and terrible to be faced with miles and miles of the unknown and nothing but your own legs to move you forward and your own curiosity that keeps you from turning back.

I know it is for me.