Get Lost

I spent my kindergarten year in the wild beauty of Sante Fe. Some mornings – they were really nights – I’d accompany my mom on her four am paper route, our hands pressed against the heater as we wound our way through the dark streets before dawn broke open the day. My godfather lived in a simple cabin outside of town, and I’d spend some weekends there, walking through the rocky countryside and playing capture the flag with the big kids who lived on the other side of the ravine.

On the way back to the cabin one time, I got turned around and couldn’t remember which way I’d come. I had clambered over huge granite slabs and through the bare forest floor and so there were no easy paths or footprints to follow back. I was all alone, the pines and piñons towering around me, and so naturally my first thought was that this is where I was going to die. 

What do you do when you’re six and lost in the woods? No cell phones or smart watches, no expectation of being back at a certain time. No breadcrumbs. As Viggo Mortensen’s character Ben in Captain Fantastic tells his son, who’s dangling off a rock face with an injured hand and an impending thunderstorm looming in the background, “There’s no cavalry. No one will magically appear and save you in the end.” Sometimes you just have to figure it out.

I did not hug a tree that day and wait for the cavalry to come. No one magically appeared and shepherded me home. After some crying and some panic, I reasoned my way out. Ravines only go two directions. My godfather’s cabin was either left or it was right.

I’ve been lost plenty since. I’ve been lost on the back country roads of West Virginia, on the unforgiving trails of the Emigrant Gap wilderness, on the winding, impossibly narrow streets of Athens. After the initial panic, reason sets in and problem solving begins. I’ve never not made it. You don’t get a choice – the stakes are too high. 

What’s so valuable about getting lost is that it forces us to meet the moment. We can ask for help – that’s meeting the moment. Who can help us? What do we need? How do we ask for it? If no one’s around, help isn’t an option. Unlike so many times in school when kids are asked to problem solve but just don’t get it, there’s no white flag option. When you’re lost you can’t just raise your hand and say “I don’t get it”. No one’s going to hover over you and help you work the problem. You have to reckon with reality: the only one coming to save you is you. 

My kids haven’t had the chance to roam the forests outside of Sante Fe, and life is certainly different now than it was in 1985. Sometimes it’s a win just to get my family out of the house on a lazy Sunday afternoon. And while it’s nearly impossible to go backwards and remove the gadgets and guardrails of our modern lives, my hope for my kids – and yours – is that they’re able to venture out into our beautiful, wild, world and get lost.