Lost

It’s been quite rare that I’ve been lost in life; or no, perhaps I’ve always been lost in it, lost in the doing what needed to be done to live, like work, for money, whoring away my time and my innocence, perhaps, those the things lost in me, personally. So many of us do, women and men alike, selling our souls or our skills, perhaps both, goods and services, for that imaginary thing called money, that which pays the rent and puts food on the table, at least for most folks in this world of private property and prostitution, both run rampant in the here and now.

And most of us don’t even recognize it, so that, I suppose, is something I’ve found, that recognition. My soul, my life and my right to it, my responsibility for it and my actions.

But one time that I was lost did come to mind, when I was asked, and thought about it a bit. I was in Greece, on one of the islands, Mykonos perhaps, perhaps Santorini. I’d been with a lover, beautiful, an Austrian man I’d hooked up with for the trip, three weeks, I’d left his room late one night, early one morning, really, I’m sure, headed back to my own room, but since every house on the side of that hill was the same, stark white, boxy, so Greek, and the walkways between them narrow, some steep, it became clear right away that I’d not find my way, and so I simply backtracked and crawled back into the bed I’d left, decided to wait for the light of day, and help in finding my way.

It worked out just fine.

Navigation has never been something I’ve struggled with, I’ve been reminded, here, on the west coast of Florida, how simple navigation always was as a child, there on the east coast, the Atlantic was east, the Lagoon to the west, and north and south in between in those ways they tend to be. Here it’s Gulf west, Swamp east, same thing, easy enough.

A trip to Providence a few years ago prompted me to buy a GPS, so dinosauric I, the phone is for calls, or internet connection, and I’m blind, can’t read street signs at night, and given how Lost the students got me that one time trying to get home from Lake Texoma, they all had phones, GPS, we sang along to rock n’ roll in the Prius, me pilot, the girls navigating, with phones, we got lost, it’s why I put my faith in Garmin, and I’m thinking that it was indeed all girls, probably Tri-Beta girls, and they ended us way the fuck up east, way out of the way, good thing we all were having a good enough time of it, singing, despite being geographically at least, completely lost.

I seem to recall ZZ Top being the absolute favorite of the girl from Durant (pronounced Doooo-rant by the natives) a really sharp cookie she. The kids all knew the Classic Rock, quite well, lots of the Motown Sound, too.

But presentations were all done, and over with. The girls might have had exams yet to study for, not me, I was free, even if it was the weekend and there were other things I’d much rather be doing than schlepping students, judging research presentations, often quite bad, some pretty good. Judge was the role I was cast into, it happens, I needed those lines on the dossier.

Honestly, the GPS I have is kind of a dumbass, and that’s fine, because really, these days, I usually don’t have any clear destination. I can’t find my way home, the home I knew as a child is gone, nearly dead, so much so toxic there, everywhere, and really, following the sun worked well enough back then, as a kid, or at least it told me what I needed to know about where I was and what direction I should go to find my way wherever it was I was going.

Methinks one has to know where she’s going to be lost, or at least have a destination. So for me, perhaps adrift in life, not lost, here’s where I am, for now, in a few weeks I’ll start making my way north again, to some other place. Then perhaps west, on the train, I’ve not been in the Rockies proper for a very long time, even if I might have to see what’s been lost there, too.

Perhaps I’ve yet to find what’s been lost, or perhaps it’s not to be found and I can’t face it very easily. The world I love is being lost, a little bit at a time, everywhere I look.

Me, I’m not lost. I’m right here.