{"id":1329,"date":"2016-09-26T07:01:51","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T11:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1329"},"modified":"2016-09-26T07:27:06","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T11:27:06","slug":"lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/lost\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RobinThere wasn\u2019t enough time to walk in the woods near my mother\u2019s house before lunch. And it was cloudy. A chance of rain. Desperate to try out my newly repaired camera, I drove my little Prius up October Mountain<\/a>. Car-hiking.<\/p>\n

The road narrowed as I drove. Up. Into dark woods, past quiet campgrounds all but abandoned now that summer was over. There was supposed to be a lake somewhere. I followed the road, zigzagging up and down, to where the trees were backlit with light. Water. Found.<\/p>\n

Returning to the car after taking my fill of photos, I saw there were three roads, not simply the one I\u2019d doggedly pressed ahead on in search of the lake. The road I headed out on soon became so pitted with potholes that the Prius, whose front bumper barely clears the ground by three inches, bounced like a ship in a stormy sea. Its belly scraped bottom at each depression. I had to make a twelve-point U-turn to come back to where the three roads met. And then everything looked different. One road was paved. Had I taken the paved road?<\/p>\n

This was turning into an adventure. I plugged in the GPS, setting it for my mother\u2019s house. It beeped and blinked red question marks as I continued along the second road, looking for something familiar. The road roughened and grew rockier, and finally petered off into a muddy trail. Another twelve-point turn, and I retraced my path to test the third road.<\/p>\n

My mother would be worried. \u201cI\u2019ll be back in an hour-and-a-half and then we\u2019ll have lunch,\u201d she\u2019d said. It was now lunchtime. I needed a bathroom. The grating of the Prius\u2019s bottom was grinding into a headache. Enough of this driving endlessly around the mountain. I wanted to be back home, in my sweet bed with the cozy pillows and new matelass\u00e9 stitched quilt. Maybe it was time to call 9-1-1. But then I\u2019d have to say I was lost, because you can\u2019t phone 9-1-1 to tell them you\u2019re simply disoriented.<\/p>\n

Lost. I\u2019m careful about how I use that word. It\u2019s such a sad word: A long-lost forgotten friend. A lost dog. Lost opportunities. \u2018Lost\u2019 sounds so hopeless: A lost soul. Love lost. To me \u2018lost\u2019 means irretrievable, consigned to oblivion. Gone. But six years ago I did not lose my father; he shows up whenever I spend a dollar. My daughter who died is not lost<\/a>; she was with me when I photographed the lake at October Mountain. Besides, I had half a tank of gas and a GPS. I was not lost.<\/p>\n

Finally, after I retried each of the three roads, the GPS found a signal and led me back. \u201cI got lost,\u201d was the first thing I told my mother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does \u2018lost\u2019 mean to you? What is not lost?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There wasn’t enough time to walk in the woods near my mother’s house before lunch. And it was cloudy. A chance of rain. Desperate to try out my newly repaired camera, I drove my little Prius up October Mountain. Car-hiking. The road narrowed as I drove. Up. Into dark woods, past quiet campgrounds all but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[702],"tags":[974,970,972,976,975,977,973,971],"class_list":["post-1329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-702","tag-all-who-wander","tag-car-hiking","tag-getting-lost","tag-grief-and-loss","tag-i-am-not-lost","tag-not-lost","tag-not-lost-just-wandering","tag-october-mountain"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t