in favour of getting lost

In general, losing one’s way is considered an undesirable event. However, I feel that the opportunities of getting lost are widely underestimated. For instance, I took up riding the bike. For weeks I had been suffering from a backache that was due to too little exercise and too much hanging around. Thinking that if hanging around gives me a backache and puts me in a bad mood, I should maybe start getting some exercise.

I hate exercise. I hate jogging. I detest running the same streets every goddamn morning as if chased by a pack of wolves. Man made the effort of exterminating them more than a hundred years ago – at least in this part of the world. No need to re-capture the feelings of our ancestors in this respect. Considering this, I decided the national masochistic pastime no. 1 was not for me.

Riding the bike sounded a tad more acceptable, if only for the fact that it can be actually to go places that are too far away to go there on foot. Much to my dismay, I found that I had nowhere to go – else I wouldn’t have been hanging around so much in the first place. So I thought that maybe I could go explore unknown parts of the city. Although Dresden in itself is not exactly the biggest of cities, it still is big enough not to know all of it. The outskirts especially are places I rarely go to. I thus got my bike and off I went.

At first, it was pretty boring. I knew where I was, I knew what I would be seeing once I turned round this or that corner, I knew what kinds of people lived there. Then, however, I rode further than I’d ever been by either tram or car. Nothing exceptional there, though, so further and further I went. Houses, blocks of flats, shopping centres… After half an hour or so – I hadn’t realized I was going for so long already – I thought it time to head back. Since I didn’t want to take the same way I’d come, I decided to stray from my thus far straight route and turn left, and then right, and left again. I went straight on, then took another turn left. Thought I was heading back. Thought the direction was right. As it turned out a few kilometres further on, I was wrong.

I had no idea where the hell I was. Then, however, I found something real nice: an old village - right in the middle of the city. A few farm houses, a barn, a field, then a shopping centre with lots of small shops and boutiques. Suddenly I didn’t care where I was or that I wanted to be home by now, I just rode on. Past a pond, an old factory building, some neat and new semi-detached houses, through a little park surrounded by sixteen-storey blocks of flats… From road to road, the sights, smells, noises changed. The newness of things enchanted me – scents I hadn’t smelled since I was a child brought back memories long forgotten. It wasn’t about getting exercise of riding the bike anymore – it was about seeing how people live, about the snails on the road that I was trying to avoid, about everything but my legs that started to hurt. I didn’t even realize they did until I came across the route of tram no. 2 whose tracks led me back into known territory. As I reached home, I felt elated and somehow very calm – and quite hungry, too.

This was a few days ago, and since then I make a point of getting lost at least once per day. I don’t do it deliberately, for that obviously doesn’t work. I just ride on, and then – I can never exactly remember when – it happens.

When I was a child, getting lost was a lot easier. It was enough to just turn a few corners without paying attention to my surroundings and suddenly nothing looked familiar anymore. I knew I had strayed only a few metres from my usual route, but I couldn’t remember in which direction it lay. I felt a mixture of fear and curiosity, the latter usually gaining the upper hand. And thus the unknown slowly became part of my territory; it grew part of my inner map and was unknown no more. My world grew with every day and every time I got lost. Had I stayed within the boundaries, had I never left familiar grounds, I’d still be where I was when I was a five-year-old.

One can get lost in many ways. One can simply lose one’s way – and by chance come a across a bakery in a little frequented side street that sells the most gorgeous bread one ever ate. One can make the wrong decision, out of accident enrol for a seminar one doesn’t have to attend and find it relates to a topic one never found access to – and thus be able to hand in a good and insightful piece of work instead of one badly written. One can get lost in one’s thoughts when one should be mulling over a difficult question – and then find an unexpected answer to a problem long unsolved.

Chance has never been where I would’ve expected it – that is why it’s called chance. Maybe getting lost once in a while turns out a healthy experience – if only for the satisfaction of being able to find my way back. I am in favour of getting lost. I am in favour of going places that I haven’t been to before. Often enough they are literally just around the corner.

The ants got lost, too. After I demolished their trail by wiping the floor with vinegar, they ran around our kitchen in utter confusion. By now, they decided they had better stay where they were: outside and in our cellar. The kitchen seems to have become forbidden territory – except for under the sink, where I still come across the occasional ant trying to escape with a breadcrumb. They’re strong little buggers, they are. I guess they can have the crumbs as long as they stay out of the rest of the kitchen – at least until I’ve found a way to eliminate them all. Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus...