When I first started driving I never worried about getting lost. I knew, as long I as I had a map and a tank full of gas that I would be ok no matter how many wrong turns I took. And so I drove without worry.
Somewhere along the line something switched off in my brain.
On Sunday the girls and I went to see a ballet, courtesy of tickets from our good friends the Eustaces. It was a children’s production of the Emperor’s New Clothes at Centrepointe Theatre. The girls were very excited. We’ve been to events like this – children’s ballet and even opera – but this particular show would be a new one for us.
If you knew where we live and if you knew the location of the theatre in relation to where we live you’d know that it isn’t very far. Nor is it very difficult to get there. But for some reason I could not visualize the location in my brain. It just wasn’t coming to me.
For the most part I am just a passenger. Mark almost always drives, and I almost always just sit and stare out the window. I don’t pay any attention to where we’re going and even though I’m watching the scenery and streets zip by it doesn’t mean that I’m taking in all this information and making detailed maps in my brain.
Sunday afternoon Mark was trying to give me information about the general whereabouts of the theatre:
“Do you know my doctor’s office is?”
“Um, yeah. Sort of.”
“Well, you just go down Baseline”
… and that’s where my brain totally fogged over. Ok. Baseline. And Woodroffe. Which is which again?
Before we left I fired up Mapblast – my lifeline in this world – because I wanted to double-check and make sure I was going to the right place.
But I felt like a total idiot doing so. Mark was hovering, and so I jotted down the bare minimum info and left it at that. And so the three of us drove away, a half-hour early just in case.
Silly me, I turned right on Woodroffe instead of left (did I mention that when I panic I have a tendency to mix up my lefts and rights?) and then left instead of right on another street. Regardless of my misdirection, I had a niggling and vague idea of where I was going. But I felt tears welling up in my eyes anyway, not because I didn’t have my handy printout from MapBlast but because I should be smarter than this, and my brain should be better able to identify, calculate and spit out the correct navigational information – but it doesn’t. Did it ever? I’m not sure.
My sense of direction is so poor that sometimes when I’m coming off the Queensway on an unfamiliar exit ramp to an East-West or North-South exit I just guess at the direction I should be going. I figure I have a 50/50 chance of getting it right and ending up where I want to be. If I’m wrong (and believe me, it’s happened LOTS of times) I just turn around the moment I realize I’m heading in the wrong direction.
The girls have learned to recognize the pattern. In the confines of the car it means the end of joking. White knuckles. And the music gets turned down.
“SHHHHH.” I hear Emma. “Mummy needs to concentrate!”
The peanut gallery falls silent when they notice me turning into a street in order to execute a calm 16-point turn so we can go back the way we came and retrace our route.
The question is always the same.
“Are we lost mummy?”
?No honey, ? I say. ?I know exactly where I am now.?
As long as I have a map and a tank of gas I?m ok, right?
