In 2001, just before the Twin Towers collapsed, I got lost in Europe with my four year old son.
Literally lost. Being Australian, one cathedral looked the same as the next. One cobbled streets was indistinguishable from the next. My boy held tightly onto my hand and looked at me. 'Mummy', he said. 'Why do you always get us lost?'. He liked security and knowing exactly where he was, my lad. He was fine with travelling alone with his mother on the other side of the world, so look as he knew where he was going. Unfortunately for him, he had a mother rarely had an itinerary, and often left home without a map. If you don't remember days before Google Maps, in the olden days we used paper maps that didn't shout at us in tinny voices when we walked the wrong way up an alley. They got wet in the rain, coffee stained and torn, and if you didn't know which way was north, you could most definitely become lost.
Unfortunately for my security loving son, I liked getting lost.
Getting lost meant finding places that were not in the Lonely Planet. The Lonely Planet was a guide book thicker than the bible that was equally worshipped, full of places to stay and things to do. The rebel in me hated being told where to stay and what to do. I wanted to discover for myself. It used to be very easy to get lost. One simply turned down a street and went against the flow of tourists and shoppers. Eventually, one might find oneself observing life on the outskirts of guidebooks. Washing flapping from blue tiled houses in Lisbon. A silver jewellery store in an alley in Barcelona. An orange tree in the middle of the square where we ate the best kebabs. A seat outside a market to observe the comings and goings of ordinary people, eating queso fresco on crackers on our laps. A flock of geese in a tiny chapel. Two great danes trotting alone past a wall of graffiti. Shared quail eggs with a devout follower of Islam who explained the beauty of his religion. It felt richer and more beautiful than paying yet another fee for a museum or a church, and less costly of course.
Travel helped my brain find new ways of seeing. We overrate how delightful it can be to remap grey matter, creating new neural pathways. It kept my brain supple and flexible, adaptable and receptive to change. It kept me motivated and inspired, zinging with the fascination that diversity sparks. It helps me move past fears, stepping outside of my comfort zone. It made me creative, philosophical, curious and alive. Whilst I might have pushed the boundaries of 'travel' to step into the 'lost' zone, being lost simply accentuated all the benefits that travel itself offered.
Eventually, my son understood my philosophy of the richness of being lost, and the rewards it brings. He came to trust in the process, and know that one is never really lost as long as they are capable of observing where they are in relation to the sun, or asking a local in pigeon local language peppered with English and mime.
Now, in 2021, I walk the streets of my town in disconsolate circles.
In 2001, the Twin Towers collapsed, and the world changed. Our personal and psychological maps changed along with it. No longer did my world seem entirely safe. Being lost in Europe as a single mother seemed an irresponsible thing to do. It would not last forever: two years later, I'd return to Europe again, and find ways to get lost again. But the world had irrevocably changed.
Twenty years later, and our maps would change again with the pandemic. Borders would shut. It would be no longer possible to freely travel and lose oneself without maps in foreign countries. Worse, we would be ordered to stay in the domestic maps of our own households, well trodden and known.
It's late July and my state has experienced it's fifth lockdown. Law dictated that we not move more than five kilometres from our home. I long for the wild spaces that no longer seem to exist: places free of cameras, of police, of border patrols and fines. I long for being somewhere unknown, unmapped, uncontrolled, unsurveilled. I worry that the only place left that is truly free is our own minds. Yet even those are beholden to the cartographers of the state and media that demand our attention, remapping our psychology to suit their agenda.
In one of the previous lockdowns, someone even created an easy way to map how far 5 kilometres is with a simple program. You can check how far 5 kilometres is from you here. If you are in a city, there is a lot in your five kilometre radius. If you are in rural Australia like me, much of it is either fenced farmland and small town streets, and a few tracks along a river. How I wish my five kilometres began ocean side, where my mind could drift for centuries on rolling waves.
These limited maps are also influencing our memories, giving us little changed context as reference points for where we are in time. What day is it, we ask? Did I just have a deja vu, or am I living the exact same moment, a veritable groundhog day? We slip into delirium, irritable and depressed. We long for travel. We long for freedom. We mourn for maps that are ours, and endless, and full of possibility. We lose hope. We feel less alive.
A five kilometre radius is a tiny and claustrophobic map for one who likes to be lost.
What are your experiences of being lost? Is it something you value? How has the pandemic changed your personal and psychological maps?
With Love,
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I have a very interesting one - In 2007 we went to the Boston, U.S. for a office trip and guys did not took the GPS in our Car. Couple of days, they drove near by and then in the evening, we all went out to eat Pizza nearby. After getting out from that place, we were lost, while driving back. We did not realize because everything was looking similar. Driving for an hour, made us worried, because certainly, it was not that far, barely 15 - 20 mins should have taken.
I remember, we could not find out anyone to ask for ( like India) and kept on driving. After all most couple of hours around 12 pm in the night, they discovered a shop open near a gas station. We asked him help, and to our surprise he told us that we are near New York. He advised us to book a taxi and ask him to guide us back and follow him. Given no option, we agreed and he booked one taxi. I remember that time, we paid somewhere between 300-400 $ for that...... The very next day, the first thing we did is that, replace the car with a GPS fitted one Chevy 😀
Oh no!!!! Did you not have maps on your phone? Oh I guess it was 2007 - !!!! How embarrassing - and costly! I bet it wasn't funny at the time, but it's a funny story now, right? I'm glad you found your way in the end, otherwise you'd still be driving around! :) Thanks for your story!
It did cost more than an ipod 😀 a memory for life time...I still have an iPod brought that time, and its working.
Ouch!!!
Yes, we still have my son's ipod from that time - it's in a basket and we don't use it (nor does he) but it always amazes me it still works!
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This was excellent writing. What an adventure!
This was excellent writing. What an adventure!
Thanks so much! Yeah, I am feeling a bit down at th emoment thinking the days of proper adventure are over, but trying to pin hopes on the fact I might have a few more in me.
I always used Lonely Planet, it is a great guide :)
It was really useful, when we could travel.
Hi - I just read your post on EMDR. I am doing it right now with a student of psych and it is totally amazing and helping me so much. I am going to teach it to myself by doing it on a friend of mine next week. Then I am going to offer to do it for FREE or by donation. I can't believe it was "quite expensive". HOW WRONG that is. Wow. I am going to do it on Zoom. I am just letting you know.
Oh that's amazing! It's an incredible process. Wow, how did you get qualified to do that? And it's possible over zoom? Amazing!
i did NOT get "qualified" to do it. i am simply going to try to do it for my friend based on reading about it in books and copying what my student friend is doing with me. I feel that "they" are making it way too expensive for what it is. I believe it should accessible to all people because it is so effective and simple - you said in your post that it is "quite expensive" - that is simply wrong to me - so I am going to teach it to myself and do it for FREE or by donation but I won't get "certified"- I was just letting you know that I am doing that - starting tomorrow afternoon I am going to work on my friend and I will let you know how it goes. And yes, I am receiving it on zoom and I will be doing it on my friend on zoom as well.
Spectacular view, the photographs id just stunning, everything looks so fantastic Thanks for sharing. I also love photography and traveling a lot, Capture and Explore the mighty Himalayas on my Mountain Bike.. do drop by when you are free.
Your comment is a prime example of why I would not bother to come and visit your blog.
I didn't share a view, I had one photograph, and 'eveything looks so fantastic' proved you didn't bother to read my post at all.
Come back when you can engage properly. Have a good weekend
Haha, you sound like me. Ive got no sense of direction. Lucky for me i never leave home with out my trusty GPS (AKA my wife) her sense off direction is off the scales and navigated through most of Europe with barley a glance at a map ;)
Thanks for sharing that story, I felt like seeing the world through your eyes when you were traveling with your son <3
To some point, I need to be prepared, like the flight, the way to the airport, hotel/apartment etc. I need to know that I'm going to arrive without trouble lol. But when exploring a (new) place, we often just go wander around and have the same experiences as you mentioned, finding the best kebab place where all the locals eat. Having great conversations with the locals that tell you about more of these hidden gems.
Even in the city where I live now, I still can get lost in many areas of the city because I could never explore all the streets here in maybe 10 years lol. I love wandering through an area I know well, and then taking just another turn to find the cutest little stores hidden in a cozy street, as well as these tiny restaurants that only have 1 or maybe two tables but serve the best food..
About finding our way back after wandering around or getting lost, usually, my inner map recognizes things quickly to find back our way. If not, we can always use G maps :)
When my husband and I did road trips into the wilds of Vermont, I was map reader. We didn't have gps. And as the years went by, the maps got older and older and roads changed. My 20 year old map was full of penciled in road changes, or road name changes. So we often got lost in later years. But we always enjoyed the process. Now he and and the road trips are gone....
It baffled me when a travel friend pulled one of those out of his backpack in Patagonia. Why the heck he'd carry one of those instead of food, I thought.
Yeah. Non-travelers will never understand the power of this sentence. I've got in so many arguments during this pandemic shit, about authoritarianism and the importance of freedom. Naturally, my friends do not have the same perspective as travelers. Most rely on what they've read in history books, instead of going out there and talking to locals, to understand how our world really works. Everyone should have a chance to travel for one year before going to university or pursuing a career or something, then, write an essay on what they've learned.
What is a 5-kilometer radius for a generation who live in the ends of a bedroom?
Sorry for the long ramble, love you.
Beautiful response, @mrprofessor, and much appreciated. The limits on our freedoms are removing who we are. I worry for a world who cannot explore itself freely. What happens to empathy, and to to all the other things we gain by stepping into the worlds of others, and pushing our limits within natural landscapes? Devastating
It happens that we become gears of a system a la 1984. But there'll always be people like ourselves, the crypto folks and other escentrics to fight for our natural rights.
Hi @riverflows I love your writing. This should be in a book. Well, I suppose it's now actually in a history book called the blockchain. I totally understand the claustrophobia that you are experiencing. Here in South Africa, we have been in one perpetual lockdown since 26th March 2020. I suffer from cabin fever at the best of times so after a few days of being indoors, I HAVE to get out, even if it is just to go to the local shop with my hubby and daughter to buy milk. That really sums it up for you, our "adventures" now consist of driving 3kms to get the bare essentials.
I've never been fond of the idea of being lost - getting lost in some parts of this country can be rather dangerous, so it's never really advisable, but in this tiny town we live in, getting lost tends to land you on a highway to beautiful mountain passes, farmland and the arid Karoo landscape which tends to stretch on forever. Not a bad place to get lost.
Shame I can understand your son's need for knowing where he is and where he's going, he sounds like a sensible man. Have you asked him recently when he last got lost? You guys have great memories from those times, let's hope that we are all given the opportunity to get out of these tyrannical bubbles we've been placed in again soon.
Big hugs to you.
Oh, hugs back. I can't imagine Jarrah wanting to get lost - him and his girl are security loving souls. I guess he'd love getting lost in a vinyl store though haha! Yes, we do have good memories. I feel lucky to be at the age I'm at - it's so much harder for the young.
Thanks sooo much for your beautiful comment, means a lot!
Thanks for making me think of it.
One time when we were kids, Melissa and I went for a sunset drive to nowhere, just enjoying each other and the car sex phase we were in for a while the autumn spring before we got married. (Cue Bob Seger's song "Night Moves.")
We parked to look at the moon over an old cemetery off a quiet country road. I think in hindsight that my stillborn elder sister is buried there, though I could be very wrong about that. When we moved back up to the front seat, my car wouldn't start. It was a '95 Buick, so pretty old in 2009. After sitting and racking my brain for an hour or so, it was very dark. We called my dad, and I figured out the problem right as he answered the phone. You can't turn on your car if you leave the transmission in gear. I was so excited to scoot to the back seat that I hadn't put it in park! 🤣 I didn't tell Melissa til after we left, but I thought I saw things moving around the headstones the whole time.
But then we were really lost. I thought I'd gone down a couple road that I often drove around on my thinking drives, but they must have gotten switched around I the dark. I didn't have a smart phone with GPS, and wouldn't for two or three more years after that. It took us damn near two hours to get home on a drive that shouldn't have taken 20 minutes. To this day, I can't recall exactly where we were, but it made for a handful of good memories. 🙃
Glad I logged in today and read this. This may be the last comment I make with this account. I haven't decided whether to keep posting with this account after I start with @foxfireorchards as my marketing website. I might just let it fade into blockchain obscurity, or maybe I'll still use it for spouting my own political silliness. I have local chats and friends for that business though. We'll see later. 🙃