Hello
Lovelies!
Everyone has been
asking about my holiday or WHOLIDAY as I am calling it. It was an amazing
and overwhelming (but in the best possible way) experience. But with everyone
who has asked about it I have started with the travel and navigation part instead
of the holiday and I will tell you for why--I am DIRECTIONLESS. So, navigating
on my own was a much much much bigger deal than for a normal person (whatever
that means.) Everyone who enquired about my hols has remarked on this saying,
"Yes, but how was the Doctor Who part of it?" Because no one seems to
understand just how important of an achievement this was for me. So, dear
reader, I am starting with the most important part.
First you must
understand this:
I have no sense of
direction. Other people say that and what they mean is if they get a bit
muddled it may take them a few minutes while they relook at the map to orient
themselves and then they're back on the right course. This is not what we mean
when we talk about me.
I have no spatial
sense in the world. I struggle with left and right. I seem to have no memory of
my surroundings even if it is a familiar place. It is like a blindness when it
comes to moving through the world. A blindness that often leaves me in a state
of sheer terror because I am lost. Not just lost, but LOST.
I first remember
this being an issue when in the 5th grade a friend who was coming over for a
sleepover phoned and asked for directions to my house and I stood there stunned
because I did not know directions to my house. I could only weakly suggest my
house address, but I had no memory of how you got there. I recall in a
panic quickly handing the phone over to my annoyed mother who rattled off a
list of directions. How did she do that? I couldn't do that. My father kindly
wrote me a list of things to say which I memorised so that I could be able to
tell someone if they asked, but it had no meaning to me.
In case you are
interested:
Go down Jackson
Street Extension and turn right onto Twin Bridges Road, turn right on
Joe Hesni Boulevard and right again at the end and take the first left onto
Stephen Circle.
This was a coping
mechanism I developed, a mantra to chant to help me in familiar places that
felt unfamiliar. I still do this every day, reciting the memorised directions
from my work to my home.
And then once when
we lived in England because the street I normally took was blocked off
because of a gas leak I had to learn a second way to get home because all I
could do was stand in the road and cry because I could not see a way to go
around it because straight was the only way I knew.
Things got worse
for me from 6th grade through Louisiana College. Now I had to change classes
and had to get places quickly. These were classes I went to every day and I
still could not remember how to get there because the halls looked basically the same so there were no landmarks to grasp. I recall vividly the rising terror
of standing at the top of the stairs at ASH not knowing which hallway should I
take to get to Science. To the left or the right? One way led to English and
one to Science, and even doing it every day I could not remember and just
watched in panic until I saw a person in my class and followed them down the
correct hall. And then there was finding my locker. How could I find it when
they all looked alike? And which order did my combination go in? I could recall
the numbers but by the time it took me to find my locker I was flustered, and
the numbers swam in front of my eyes.
Most people never
knew this about me. I was very good at "masking." I had seen the look
of disbelief and annoyance on my mother's face who thought I was just playing
up and had no sense as opposed to no sense of direction.
It got much much
worse when I learned to drive. I HATED driving. There was so much to
remember, so many body parts to coordinate, the screaming pain like being tased
in the tailbone after driving for more than 30 minutes (thank you broken
coccyx). How could I also add navigation to the mix?
I worked the same
job for 4 summers. I worked for the Rapides Parish Library Summer Reading
Programme. I was required each week to drive to 2 different library
branches a day. It was so stressful because none of it ever looked familiar. I
don't mean that each summer I had to re-learn the way because I hadn't driven
it in a year. No, I mean each week I had to re-learn because I hadn't
driven it in a week. I was always accompanied by a teenage student worker
who had good directional sense. I just remember speeding down a highway
in tears because nothing looked familiar, and I didn't know where I was. Each
summer the student worker acted like a SAT NAV and just told me where to turn.
Smart ones pointed instead of saying "left" or "right"
because I was very likely to go the wrong way.
I met the Amazing
Spiderman in 1989. He was amazing in more ways than one. He took that
burden from me because he was good at navigation. Perhaps he was just normal
and merely competent at it, but in my eyes he was a GENIUS. He was
endlessly patient as my father had been. Whenever we went to a restaurant
where you had to go up the stairs and down corridors to get to the toilets not
being able to find my way back was a regular occurrence. After 5 minutes
he would just come to find me as I stood crying in a corridor, my heart
squeezing with panic and shame. When I desperately wanted to go to London
to hear a lecture at Friend's House at the age of 40, he turned it into a board
game with photographs of all the landmarks I had to pass on my 10
minute walk. We played that game every night for weeks before I went so that
I could have a mantra of landmarks to recite as I made the simple journey. He never shamed
me for this lack of spatial ability. He only ever looked at me with love in his
eyes.
We were together
for 32 years before he died, and he was my North Star in more ways than one.
While I have taken trips since he died, there was always someone to meet me on
the other side and chauffer me around. And last year when my mother and
granddaughter were killed in the car accident, a friend texted me at every
airport to tell me my next departure gate. So then all I had to do was find the
gate, which was difficult enough, but made less difficult by not having to
locate and interpret giant electronic signs that keep changing while you are
trying to read them before finding the correct departure gate. That trip
was not fun AT ALL and I had big ole snotty sobbing breakdowns in 3 airports
from the stress of it.
When Spiderman
died, I felt DIRECTIONLESS in more ways than one. Not only had I lost my trusty
navigator, but my soulmate as well. I wondered would my directional issues ever
allow me to continue on our adventures. Then a few months ago I had a
very clear dream where Spiderman told me I was ready. That I was to go to
Weston-Super-Mare to see the Doctor Who exhibit at the museum. That he would
guide me, and I was to bring a framed photo of him with me. And so, I booked
it--another skill I have had to learn. Transportation and
accommodation were also part of the things he did for me.
I am surrounded by
ANGELS. As soon as I started telling customers I was going on a trip, my first
holiday since he died, I was surrounded by help.
An older customer
gave me his A-Z book of street maps of Weston-Super-Mare and helped me
practice tracing the route from my hotel to the museum every time he came to
the shop.
A younger customer showed me how to use GOOGLE MAPS on my phone
and set it up for the walking directions. He taught me that my body would
be a large dot on the map and there would be a dotted line I was supposed to
follow and so if I was not going the right direction I could see in real time
that I was off track. Another customer (who is becoming a friend, hoorah!)
showed me that if you do GOOGLE MAPS on a computer you can see street views and
so I spent hours before I left practicing walking through the town and making a
list of landmarks I would pass to know I was on the right track and landmarks
that would help me know where to turn (turn right by Superdrug is much easier than
turn right on Orchard Street. Also, why do so many streets not have a fecking
street sign????)
And so, by the
time I got there I knew where I was. I had a list of landmarks and so was much
calmer and was able to enjoy myself. It was like a switch had flipped in my
head. Suddenly I could see connections. I could see how this street connected
to that street and remember it. Something I have NEVER been able to do before.
I was like a
cartoon getting an idea and a light bulb appears over their head. It was like
my whole brain was illuminated for the first time in my life. I even was able
to look at GOOGLE MAPS and make the connection that the cinema (where I had
practiced finding before the trip) was near the train station and so I was able
to use my prior knowledge to get me to the cinema and then do a practice walk
the day before I left to the station. I just went slowly, used the dots on
GOOGLE MAPS to help me know I was going in the right direction and then emailed
myself a list of landmarks to follow the next day. And it worked. it really
worked.
I came home so
excited because I now had coping mechanisms and some directional skills but mainly,
I had CONFIDENCE. This has opened up a whole world of travel for me. Which is
why I must talk about it first, before I tell you all about my grand
adventure.
Stay tuned
tomorrow for the tale of SIX go on a WHOLIDAY.
