Get Lost

When Eric's plane landed in Stockholm a month ago, he spent the next few hours utterly lost, truly a stranger in a strange land. His first Facebook post from Sweden, though, didn't stop with the "lost" part. It ended with him eventually finding his hostel.

It was that last sentence of his--the one in which he eventually figured things out--that kept me from fretting too much for him. Like my fretting would have done him any good any way.

I keep coming back to the idea of Eric working his way through being lost, and I've decided that getting lost may be the best way to start a vacation. Or a life. Or a day.

That's why I chose "Get Lost" as my motto for the school year. When I rolled it out to the students, I told them about Eric's experience in Sweden, but I also added that there are all kinds of ways to get lost.

I got lost in a half dozen books this summer, never once leaving my comfortable den. Knee deep in my Nordic noir, while I may have put the book aside for the afternoon, I often felt fuzzied and confused as I negotiated the chilly, murderous world of what I'd read with the steamy, sub-tropical climes of my backyard.

I got lost on the bike path, riding the same route at different times of day, taken aback by the different lighting, the different crowds, the different smells on that otherwise familiar path.

This summer, I got lost making new foods, observing new plants in the garden, discovering a family of screech owls, and moving my son into a dorm.

The beauty of getting lost is that a person sees the world differently and more deeply. Really, we should all get lost on a regular basis. Then, we could replace fear with wonder, learning to appreciate the fresh perspectives, the body come alive.

Sure, I may very well tell a student or two to "GET LOST!" this year and mean it in the most literal, hot-headed way. Mostly, though, I'm hoping my "get lost" nudges them into new territories, bumps them up against new people and perspectives, puts a new shine on their sometimes tired young lives.

I know that getting lost in Sweden already has served Eric well as he begins his new life in college. What's the worst that can happen, after all, when you've been a stranger in a strange land and have seen it through to a satisfying end?