When my partner Jonathan and I first moved to Victoria we got lost all the time. We were exhausted, dislocated, and not at all used to finding our way around in a city. We were small-town mice, trying to be city mice, but we didn’t know how. We had maps, but the streets here change their names in totally unexpected places, and a lot of them are one way. I got so tired of being lost. We had all these things we needed to do in order to land here, and everything seemed to take so much longer when we were driving around in circles. I wanted to go from point A directly to point B and get each task checked off our list. Life did not seem to be co-operating with my agenda.
One day we were on our way to another destination. It was a beautiful afternoon, the wind from the ocean playing through the oak trees, the flowers drinking in the sunlight. As we came around a corner, Jonathan said, “Where are we?” and we both realized at the same moment that we were lost. Again. Except this time we had no reaction to being lost. It wasn’t a problem. In fact, in that moment, it was kind of enjoyable. I felt as if something heavy inside me had just been cut loose, and I was flowing freely through the landscape. We did nothing to make that moment happen-it came out of nowhere.
It turned out to be one of those moments that got bigger and brighter later on. I kept being called back to the freedom that wrapped its arms around me, when I was simply okay about being lost. I realized how long I’d been afraid of being lost, how much struggle and anxiety had built up in me, trying to prevent it. It was as if I’d been crawling along inside a dark and narrow tunnel with the words, “don’t ever get lost” emblazoned on the walls. And really, that tunnel was my brain, and those words were a belief structure I never really saw, because I was so far inside it.
That moment in the car, when it was suddenly okay, was like popping my head up through the top of the tunnel, and looking into a big field full of daisies blowing in the sunshine, birds swooping around, pears ripening on the trees.
How did I think it was possible to be alive, and never get lost? What if lost was just another way of being here, no better or worse than being on track? What’s so great about being ‘right on’ anyway? What’s so important about knowing where I am going? Isn’t there something much more interesting and mysterious going on than sticking to my narrow little path?
Maybe all my life I’ve just been waiting for the moment when I could get well and truly lost.
with love.
Shayla
9 Comments
Join the conversation and post a comment.
Leave a Comment
Stay Connected
Hi Shayla,
This post about it really being just fine to “be lost” really resonates with me. I had just been describing to my friend Pamela the feeling I have of being disconnected, purposeless, and unattached to so many things these days. And that I am recognizing that this experience, while it is somewhat of odd feeling, isn’t really all that bad. I am relatively happy in feeling lost and purposeless. I guess I am learning to relax into my fear of no sense of direction. I still get hung up on this also meaning that I “have no value”..but then, having value is also just a construct….
An odd feeling, but not altogether uncomfortable…until I start attaching stories to it. .
Lisa
Thanks Shay!
Who was it that said you’re only lost if you’re trying to get somewhere ??
I love getting lost on the island because there is only so far to go before you need to either change direction or choose another method of travel.
Brilliant…a beautiful reminder of the real pleasure of being a human when we drop our fear of being anything else. Thanks for inspiring us with this moment of grace. Love to you because of the blessing you are in my life!
I am lost without you that was my immediate response. You are a healing balm on the frenzy of finishing this Color of Woman Course..I will wrap my arms around the frenzy as just another way to be here. All the judgement and stress went a way poof.. much love Shaylalal
I am lost without you that was my immediate response. You are a healing balm on the frenzy of finishing this Color of Woman Course..I will wrap my arms around the frenzy as just another way to be here. All the judgement and stress went a way poof.. much love Shaylalal
love it!
embracing & exploring what has previously threatened us.
thank you shayla!
xox
judy
Shayla,
Your Lifeletter today reminds me of a poem by David Wagoner.
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
and you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
where you are. You must let it find you.
Love,
Angela