Confessions of Weakness
PARIS - November 23, 2004
If it wasn't already glaringly clear to me before, the last few days have confirmed without a doubt that I have no sense of direction. In His great sense of humor, not only did God forget to give me the ability to play any sport that involves a ball, but He also failed to provide me with the essential brain lobe that allows one to find their way in the world, literally speaking. I go left when I should have gone right and right when I should have gone straight. And even though I know it is not true, left is always west and right is always east, regardless of the sun's position in the sky. (Not that the sun could have helped me here considering it still chooses to hibernate in the clouds).
I can fake my way through most things in which I have little talent, but I simply cannot master the art of knowing where I am and where I should go. I have tried everything to remedy this weakness, all to no avail. I scour maps with a vengeance; I write notes on my hands to remember the turns; I give myself pep talks and tell myself that that I am the master of directions and that I will not get lost this time; and more obviously, I attempt to memorize routes and landmarks. While this seems logical to most people, landmarks in fact become my greatest enemy, for at some point in time, I have wandered past every landmark in any given space, with little idea where it is in relation to where I need to be. The only thing I can say with certainty is that I have seen the landmark before. And so I continue to wander. I figure a full 238 hours of my life have been spend wandering aimlessly. My life quote is from the mouth of Tolkien and says, "All who wander are not lost." While certainly true for me in a sort of metaphysical sense, Tolkien has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to the relation of space and time!
Take last night for instance. My train from Brittany pulled into Paris around 11:15 PM. From the train station to my friend's apartment, it should have taken me only 20 minutes. However, it wasn’t until 12:30 AM, that I finally found myself in my French home. What happened, you ask?
Well, somewhere between the metro station and the apartment, I got completely turned around and walked in exactly the opposite direction of where I needed to go. There are only 2 turns between the station and the apartment, so once I had turned 5 times, I knew something was wrong (yes, I catch on quickly!). I finally made it to the apartment complex and proceeded to use the elevator on the left. When I got to the 4th floor, nothing looked familiar, so I carefully and quietly began inserting my key in all of the doors on the floor, none of which yielded the longed-for click. Rather, I am sure I gave some poor soul a heart attack in their bed as they heard someone attempting to "break in" after midnite. Nearly in tears, I retraced my steps and saw the other elevator, the right elevator and made it to my bed without further incident. I am happy to say that I only wasted 55 minutes of my life! I wish I could blame it on exhaustion, but those of you who know me well can probably recall a plethora of similar instances.
It is probably obvious from my ramblings that today held little excitement in the way of French exploration. I went to the market, rode the train, argued with the incompetent man at the "customer service" counter, and bought a Ukranian CD from some musicians in the Metro tunnel. I really don't know how the latter happened for Slavic tunes do not rank at the top of my preferred listening list. But the Slavic stars must have been aligned this afternoon, and as the music reached my ears, I felt myself following the sound like a child mesmerized by the Pied Piper's flute. Once my reverie broke, I found myself 20 euro poorer, a random CD in one hand, and…you guessed it! Completely lost in the middle of the Metro station. Some things never change!!