Life is a journey and travel is an education and travelling alone teaches you about yourself. Et cetera. It's a week now since I set off by myself from home and reluctantly I have to admit the cliches contain some truth. I have learnt something about myself, if not everything about myself (not sure I could deal with that - delusion is an essential part of sanity, surely). What I've discovered is just one thing - one big, unavoidable, shameful truth. It's a fact that's been hidden from me for decades, thanks to my husband's competence. Without him as a companion, I've had to face the reality though: no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot read maps.
And I'm no better with directions. I can't understand the jargon - words like 'west' and 'north' and 'left' and 'right'. I don't carry a compass (perhaps I should - is it eccentric to be without one?) and I get stuck wondering whether they mean left if you're facing a building or left when looking away. I stand in lanes, cow parsley (sorry, 'Queen Anne's Lace') bursting into flower around me, staring down at my bits of paper, my brain scrambling as I try to make sense of where I'm supposed to be (it feels as if things are getting in the kind of mess inside my skull that we see towards the end of this clip.) I frown, my expression is the one my dog used to have when she was trying very hard to understand what I was telling her. I whimper a little. I begin to shake. Tearing at my hair, I fall to the ground and then I start to weep. Actually that last bit's not true - yet.
Perhaps you're over-rationalising and should instead try instinct? You may well be pigeon-like. Trust in the force.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough I had some pigeon for dinner last night. Not just self-harming, but self-eating - oh dear.
ReplyDeleteClose your eyes and feel the force. Or something like that. Good luck with the navigating.
ReplyDeleteI've worked out what to do - ring up my husband. Should I wake him if the time difference means it's the middle of the night or just wait on the side of the road until the sun comes up before I get his advice? What would you do with M. deFarge?
ReplyDeleteThe great consolation is that at least you're not in a group of people all pontificating about the precise placing of that pub over there.
ReplyDeleteI once spent 2 hours driving round Newcastle getting more and more frustrated that I couldn't find my destination. After a bit of a row, I requistioned the map from my wife, only to discover that all along she had been looking at it upside down.
ReplyDeleteMy wife is pretty good at navigation, though she does do that thing of turning the map upside down when heading south.
ReplyDeleteMy mother on the other hand suffers from your map-blindness, and geography problems generally. Satnavs are brilliant for such people - I bought her one for Christmas and it has set her free to drive off and visit people.
thought of a new name for the syndrome of being slight unsure of ones navigational skills.
ReplyDeleteMismapprehension
kevin - Yes, this morning I passed a bunch of walkers with ski sticks and Goretex everything and plastic bags of maps on strings around their necks - they were all huddled together bullying each other about the best route to somewhere or other. I suppose I could have asked for directions myself but couldn't face it (and wouldn't understand anything they told me anyway)
ReplyDeleteBrit - am just reading a novel by Jonathan Coe whose main character's best relationship seems to be with his SatNav(he loves her voice). But your mother must now miss all the interesting municipal recycling plants et cetera that I get to see in my misguided travels, poor thing
Worm - I do think geographic dyslexia should be a recognised medical diagnosis - I am virtually certain Germany is to the left of Britain (which I suppose it is if you look at the globe with north at the bottom and south at the top)