When I give directions, to someone else or just to myself, I usually describe the turns in the air. Sometimes my hand-path ends up resembling the track you have to follow in one of those tilt-boxes if you want to keep your marble from falling in a hole.  If I’m going to take a trip using mapquest or google directions, I do better if I draw the turns ahead of time because to me direction is physical.  When I was a child I used to think of  “right” as going away from my body and “left” as going toward it. I was so literal I remember getting really mixed up when I first found out that north wasn’t towards the sky and south towards the ground.

I think it would be a lot of fun to look into the ways people navigate—stars, scratches in the dirt, cairns, blazes, and so on. I heard on NPR, for instance, that when they’re telling someone how to get to a place,women tend to use landmarks while men use mileages or street names.   I guess that means I’m a woman. Take a right, I used to say, at the Lighthouse Baptist Church—an institution that when it was first set up was called “Hour of Deliverance” and consisted of a tent and services that reputedly included snake handling.  Before there was any church on that corner, I’d tell people to turn at Dr. Healy’s road since Dr. Healy, being the only doctor in that rural area, had put up a little sign pointing toward his house in case someone needed medical attention.  I absolutely never said “Turn right at NW 246th Avenue” which I think, but I’m not sure, is the name the country gave the road when they numbered all rural roads for emergency vehicles.

But a general discussion’s too much for a blog so I’ll settle for telling you a story.   The Christmas season my grand-daughter Ava was five, she found out that if she went around the house holding a sprig of mistletoe over her head, she’d get kisses. Now since Ava likes kisses a LOT, and since the mistletoe gambit was her most sure-fire way so far to get them, she wasn’t about to give up just because her mother threw the mistletoe away after New Year’s— especially not when she knew where it had come from– a wild plum growing at the bottom of the pasture behind her house. So she decided to get more, mistletoe first, then kisses.

She started by drawing herself a map consisting of a wobbly rectangle for the back door, two more or less parallel lines, and a tree with squiggles at the top.   She made a copy for her little sister then tucked one copy into her pants and the other into Lydia’s diaper, and the two of them got ready to set out on the road to high adventure.  First, though, Ava had to tell D’Arcy (her mother), who was sitting on the front porch at the time, where she and Lydia were going.  So she did.  Then she started for the front door.  D’Arcy didn’t get why Ava was going inside.  Wouldn’t it be easier if she just went around the house?     NO, said Ava.  Her map started at the back door, and so would she.

Since this was a time when Ava was demanding adult attention/company pretty much twenty-four seven, D’Arcy was surprised Ava hadn’t demanded she come too.   She was also pleased, because if Ava and Lydia did make it to the plum tree, it would be the farthest from home Ava had ever gone by herself.   She waited until she heard the back door close, then went inside to watch out the window. She been sure the children would turn back.   They didn’t. But every few steps Ava would drop Lydia’s hand to consult the map, then tuck it back in and start off again (to get the point of that, you have to understand that there aren’t any paths in the pasture.)  Finally, Ava seemed to be satisfied they were on the right track and the two of them started decisively marching (and toddling) downhill.   Now, D’Arcy thought all this was sweet—any mother would– but she had her doubts because the mistletoe they’d picked was growing well beyond Ava’s reach, even assuming she could climb the tree. And since Ava, like most five year olds, tended not to be philosophical about defeat, D’Arcy spent the few minutes after she and Lyddy disappeared bracing herself.   But she needn’t have worried. The two of them came triumphantly back, each of them holding a good sprig of mistletoe over her head. Sometimes, fellow babies, maps work.