I got lost on a walk last Tuesday. Not dangerously lost. Not "call search and rescue" lost. Just "I do not recognize this part of the trail and I am not sure which direction leads back" lost.
It happened because I took a turn I had not taken before. A side trail that branched off the familiar route and looked interesting enough to follow. I told myself I would walk it for ten minutes and then turn back. But ten minutes became twenty, and by then the trail had narrowed to something that was either a path or a deer track, and the trees had thickened enough that I could not see any landmarks.
For about thirty seconds, I felt a flash of anxiety. The phone came out of my pocket before I even decided to check it. GPS loaded. Blue dot on a map. Relief.
But then I put the phone back. Not because I had figured out where I was, but because I realized I did not actually need to know. I was in a forest. It was a Tuesday afternoon. I had nowhere to be for hours. The worst case scenario was a longer walk than planned.
So I just kept going. And something shifted. The attention that had been focused on "where am I" expanded outward. I started noticing the forest differently. Not as a navigation problem but as a place.
Being lost, it turns out, is one of the few experiences that forces genuine presence. You cannot be lost and distracted at the same time.
I found my way back eventually. It took an extra forty minutes. It was the best forty minutes of my week.
When was the last time you were lost somewhere, even a little, and found that you did not mind? These stories are my favorite things to read.
Steven
