"East Or West, My Couch Is Best"

More adventures from the "Jocelyn As Idiot Runner" Files:

I am the kind of person who can get lost between my house and my job (where I've worked for six years). I can take a wrong street on my way to Cub Foods and end up doing an 18-point turn to back myself away from a creek I never knew existed. I can head out, confidently, to find the mall, only to discover that I'm in a small touris town 26 miles north of here.

In short, I'm severely directionally challenged. It's so bad that my Wee Kiddles, small children who can barely get themselves onto a toilet without help, are able to call out, as we drive, "Maaaa, you were supposed to turn right back there." Yea, whatever. At least I can myself onto the toilet unaided--knock wood.

So it was with no small trepidation that I challenged myself to undertake a new sport last year: orienteering. An overview of orienteering would go like this: throw yourself out into the woods with only a confusing map and a compass and try to find small, hidden flags as fast as you can. There is a reason why all competitors are required to carry a whistle: HELPPPP, I'VE FALLEN, AND I CAN'T GET OUT OF THE LUMPY HUMMOCK!

Before starting my first orienteering race in Big Woods State Park, I made darn certain that my husband was acquainted with the sound of my particular whistle, so he could come find me after 10 hours had elapsed and before my need for a hamburger and chocolate caused me to wring the neck of a squirrel and cobble together a spit on which to roast it.

And then I was off. The clock started, I copied the "control" points onto my topographical map, and I dashed, with great enthusiasm, into the woods.

Several moments later, I re-appeared, turned in a circle several times, scratched my head, and then dashed off into the woods again...in the opposite direction.

And then, for the next hour, I stopped, scratched, and dashed with regularity, looking over the map and cross-referencing what I was seeing in the woods with the symbols on the map. Was I standing in a "dry ditch" or and "erosion gully"? Was that mound in front of me an "earth bank" or a "small knoll"?

Eventually, I managed to find all seven control points and punch my little orienteering card each time (and I am big enough to admit that I only found a couple of the control points by tagging behind other muddy souls who were in my same race).

At the end, when I came blistering out of the woods into the bright sunshine, I felt as though days had elapsed, not a mere hour; the journey had been that complex. I was a new woman, one who had learned deep lessons while under the canopy of the oaks: nature is confounding; some people either "got it" or they "ain't" when it comes to directionality; and I should never again leave the safety of my couch.

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By the way, if you have any extra time today, please come find me. I'm lost.

All I wanted to do was walk to my kitchen after writing this, but now I'm in a really small, dark place...wait a minute, I just pulled a Batman action figure out from my armpit...ooh, and there's a Blue's Clues camera resting on my clavicle...and some legos stuffed up in my nostrils...I guess I'm in my kids' toybox.

Bring food. And a compass.