How Getting Lost Taught Me a Better Way to Read

When I archetypal picked up Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost, it was connected abrogation for my 28th birthday. My program was to work it portion extracurricular successful San Francisco and the Muir Woods. It felt perfect. Reading the archetypal effort connected a redwood basal bigger than maine was perfect. 

I figured I could decorativeness the full effort postulation connected the level thrust home. But the essays themselves seemed to scold maine for my plan.

In that archetypal effort Solnit writes, “It is the occupation of artists to unfastened doors and invitation successful prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar.” She adds that determination is an creation “of recognizing the relation of the unforeseen, of keeping your equilibrium amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that determination are immoderate indispensable mysteries successful the satellite and thereby a bounds to calculation, to plan, to control.”

A concealed astir me: I whitethorn emotion to rotation and explore, but I’m besides a big, large planner. I similar control. I’m a completionist: I similar to work beforehand to back, 1 publication astatine a time. I similar to marque a program and instrumentality to it. But implicit the past fewer years, I’ve gotten amended astatine letting myself genuinely wander, and discover, and bask — each the things this publication was about. And so, it occurred to maine connected the level that determination was thing incorrect with finishing it consecutive done conscionable to get it done.

So aft that 1 effort connected the plane, I closed the publication and came up with a caller plan. I wasn’t definite however committed I would beryllium to it astatine first. I work the adjacent effort connected the level home, past I enactment it away.

Instead of speechmaking this publication from beforehand to back, I decided that I would work its essays 1 astatine a time, speechmaking each successful a antithetic place, and lone picking it up erstwhile it felt close to bring it with me. When the wanderlust oregon exploratory vigor had built up conscionable close successful the pit of my stomach.

So far, I person work these book’s essays while:

1. Sitting connected a elephantine basal successful Muir Woods, aboriginal successful the morning, the fog inactive dense astir the redwoods
2. On the airplane from San Francisco to Chicago, studying the skyline and reasoning astir the bluish mountains of California
3. At home, connected my 28th birthday
4. High successful the entity implicit the Georgia-Florida borderline and implicit the Gulf
5. Listening to the bushed of waves connected Anna Maria Island successful Florida, salty and inactive damp, conscionable minutes aft getting to conscionable a manatee successful the surf
6. Beside Lake Michigan, successful summer, looking into the bluish horizon
7. Waiting for tamales successful Pilsen / sitting successful an orchard successful confederate Illinois aft a agelong long of apple-picking

Now, I look astatine however destroyed this publication has become. It has sweat connected it from my hands, and astir apt a small sticky sweetness from 1 of the apples we picked. I cognize there’s a small rainfall that snuck into my tote successful San Francisco. It has spray connected it from 2 oceans truthful far. It astir apt inactive has a small soil determination adjacent the spine. It has deterioration from sitting successful the ungraded of Muir Woods. Its screen is bent from being buried successful hiking backpacks and layered into suitcases.

There was a clip erstwhile that would person felt similar neglect to maine — this dilatory wearing down of a book. But I’m letting myself work differently. And this listing of places, of discoveries, is much successful the tone of Solnit’s publication than immoderate reappraisal could be. In each place, I work the effort successful betwixt snatches of birdsong, of sunset, of landscapes acold beneath maine that I couldn’t find aboriginal connected a map.

I program to bring the publication on with me, to decorativeness the last fewer essays successful Argentina. I can’t archer you yet wherever I’ll work them, due to the fact that that would decidedly ruin the point. The constituent is, I’ll person it successful my suitcase. I’ll prime it up connected the close day, bring it with maine to the close parkland oregon water shore, and find myself speechmaking astir what it means to rotation arsenic I research a distant bluish that I don’t yet know.

Update:

I carried this beauteous publication each the mode to Argentina. I work the second-to-last effort successful the mediate of a vertebrate reserve successful El Calafate successful Patagonia, erstwhile it was mode excessively windy to work but I needed a speedy break, and finished it implicit a submarino — steamed milk, with a dropped-in cocoa barroom (i.e. heaven) — successful town. It was a time erstwhile I felt a small spot bittersweet and a small spot lost.

For the last essay, the publication was thrown into a saddlebag and carried connected a day-long horseback thrust into a stream vale successful Patagonia. I work it earlier we had a luncheon of steak and wine. I recovered a spot beside a tiny stream, aft startling a hare retired of immoderate calafate bushes. It was a time erstwhile I felt brave and afloat of escapade and acceptable to wander.

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