Let me be brutally honest. I have the worst sense of direction on the planet. Had I been born a few centuries ago and sailed with Columbus, I probably would have fallen off the edge of the earth. Had I been dogsledding with Robert Peary and searching for the North Pole, there’s no doubt in my mind that I would have been stranded together with a flock of penguins on a floating iceberg just off the shores of Antarctica. Had I been leading the Franklin expedition in the quest for a northwest passage that cut across the continent, I would probably have ended up bogged down in an endless lineup at Disneyworld.
It’s sad, I know, but I have a hard time knowing my left from my right, east from west and north from south. If it wasn’t for gravity, I probably wouldn’t be able to distinguish up from down. They say that there is no up and down in space, so maybe the life of an astronaut should have been my career choice. Unfortunately, any vital instruction telling me to turn left at Jupiter would jumble up any possible intergalactic travel plans for me.
Possibly even more challenging than trying to navigate the Northwest Passage are excursions to the local supermarket. Directions as to where I can find a package of Bob’s Red Mill organic ground flax are just as likely to send me and my shopping cart off into deep space as to the proper location in aisle 7B. Precise verbal directions and hand signals from supermarket staff employees may prove helpful to normal shoppers, but knowing the aisle and shelf numbers always seems to plop me directly facing the canned persimmons display rack. Being informed that a certain specialty item can be located two aisles over on the bottom shelf between the lactose free sour cream and the triple cream Greek yogurt may pinpoint the exact location to other shoppers, but is more than likely to deposit me smack-dab in the pet food section right in front of the doggie rawhide chewy bones. Most discouraging is the feeling I get after I have passed the bulk chocolate-covered jujubes five times and made a mental note to myself to finally pick them up on my last sweep through the aisles. Inevitably, I then forget which bin they are in, which results in my having to scan every container in the bulk food row. Almost as frustrating is leaving my buggy in one of the aisles so that I can quickly sprint over to pick up a forgotten grocery item in another location in the store, and then not be able to locate and retrieve the shopping cart no matter how much I search.
I have discovered, however, that all is not hopeless when it comes to having a rotten sense of direction. There are proven tactics and exercises that can increase the chances of not getting lost. The first and most important one is to ask directions. If you are of the male gender, you will never stoop to this strategy, so you might as well move right on to the next most important maneuver: using clues in your surroundings to assist in helping you find your way. You might recall that in the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, the siblings dropped breadcrumbs as they wandered through the forest so they could later retrace their steps and find their way back home. It’s a pity that the crumbs were devoured by the forest wildlife, which is why the children ended up on the menu at the evil witch’s cake and sugar house. But hey, at least they had a plan. Other techniques for finding the way back home include tying one end of a large ball of yarn to your starting point, unrolling the ball until you reach the destination, and then rolling it back up as you follow the line of yarn back to where you started. This method is guaranteed to work unless any living being or machine happens to cross the line of yarn and accidentally or purposely breaks it.
Perhaps the most annoying challenge to navigating your way between here and there is the roundabout or traffic circle. Once considered an innovative engineering tool for integrating traffic flow, this monstrosity of misunderstanding and misdirection completely confuses both competent drivers and those who have zero sense of direction. As a result, either all traffic stops because nobody knows who actually has the right of way, or all traffic continues to go around in circles because nobody knows when it is their turn to exit the circle. If, by some miracle, you do manage to disengage from this merry-go-round of disoriented vehicles, you can be certain that the exit you took was not the one you wanted.
Speaking of confused directions, Salt Spring Island is possibly the Mecca of lost steps and unintentional backtracks. So many establishments and businesses have changed locations over the years that directions as to how to find these have to describe not only where they are presently, but also where they may once have been located. An example of such a direction could be something like “turn left at where the Video Ranch used to be before they moved into Grace Point and then head up the hill to the old hospital right across from what was once the cop shop.”
If you’ve lived on the island long enough, you may still remember how to find your way to the Vesuvius Inn or the Fulford Inn, although neither of these still exist. Long gone as well is the dark bar at the back of the Harbour House which was affectionately known as the Dungeon (or was it the Pit?). Any list of business past incarnations would have to include the credit union, which bounced around the downtown core so many times that you can still find old deposit slips blowing along the sidewalk and lining the shores of Ganges Creek.
Nobody asked me, but I’ve learned that it’s still possible to find my way around this island even if my sense of direction is beyond atrocious. The GPS app in my dashboard ought to be a great help if only I could locate its location on the instrument panel. Oh well, a little perseverance and a lot of luck wouldn’t hurt, especially since I can’t often track down my vehicle because I can’t find the actual parking lot where I last left it. Worst of all, however, are situations like the time I drove onto the ferry and walked off. Now that’s beyond beyond atrocious. That would have been the perfect time to jump off the edge of the earth.