Internal Compass
The first Beach Grief Walk of the year was held on a gorgeous spring day. It was sunny, but there was also a cold wind. It was a good reminder that two opposing things can be true at the same time. It was both warm in the sun and cold when the wind blew. On the walk, we were feeling heavy feelings and also laughed. You can be grieving and also feel moments of contentment, happiness, gratitude, and even joy.
I’ll share a story I shared on the walk. Someone was talking about using the location of a body of water as a directional reference place, which reminded me of a road trip I took with my sister, Sarah.
I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. I went to college in Northeast Ohio, and then I moved to the eastern side of Cape Cod. In all those places, there was water to the east or north. My internal compass was firmly set to sense the water to the east.
When I was living on Cape Cod, my sister and I made a bet about the age of our mom’s car. Why I took this bet is beyond me—Sarah was still living in Michigan and saw my mom all the time. I’d been away from home for over five years at that point. I lost that bet, naturally. My wager was to fund a trip to California for us. Takeaway: if you need a win, make a bet with me!
Sarah and I did a road trip around California. We started in San Francisco (ask me about our hostel experience sometime), where my good friend gave us a room and was a great tour guide. We were on our own for the rest of the trip. From SF, we drove down the coast in a rental car that wobbled when the wind blew. Somewhere down CA 1, we decided to check out the redwoods. They were incredible! Cape Cod has a couple of old growth swamps, but most of the trees are small because of the sandy ground—tiny in comparison to a redwood!
Driving through redwoods in California.
Since we’d strayed from the highway to explore, we got a bit turned around. Well, I had this incredible internal compass that always pointed to the water. I knew I could figure out where we were, using this sixth sense and our paper map (yes, this was before cell phones and GPS in every car). Remember, though, that my internal compass was set to having water to the east. My compass worked, but did not adjust to the Pacific Ocean. We turned left when we should have gone right. We went north when we should have gone south. If I remember correctly, we lost at least an hour of time, if not more, because of my expert navigation!
We eventually made it down to Los Angeles and then on to Joshua Tree, Rhyolite, Death Valley (ask me about that, too), skirting Yosemite, and then back up to the Bay Area for camping at Point Reyes. Did my internal compass get us lost again? For sure, but we learned not to trust it anymore!
Many years later, I visited and then moved to San Francisco, where that internal compass just started spinning out of control, what with water on three sides! It’s settled down now, straining toward the west now that I live near Puget Sound. Don’t ask me for directions, though, or you might get sent the wrong way!
Sarah smiling in front of Golden Gate Bridge (not on the fated road trip)
