Getting Lost

“Control is never achieved when sought after directly. It is the surprising outcome of letting go.”
-James Arthur Ray






If you never explored you would never be lost. The bad part is that if you never were lost you never explored. I’ve been lost on many occasions and in multiple scenarios. Once at night while I was in the woods. Other times, when all was visible. I’ve gotten lost while on rides, runs, boarding trips, even in familiar places. Being lost is not necessarily a bad thing; in fact I sometimes go out of my way to get lost. It adds a new sense of adventure to whatever I’m doing. It makes me have a new sense of purpose to the task at hand. The objective being to find your way.
You may not be sure what way to go, or what you may see when you decide to embark on this course. The one thing that is for certain is that it is an adventure. It may not seem fun at the time. In fact you’re more likely to be frustrated and annoyed. But when you finally get back on tract. Back to what is familiar; you will be better able to appreciate the adventure that you just undertook. This appreciation is further enhanced when finding your way out of darkness.
On one night ride, me and as couple guys got separated in the woods. Going down a trail at night is a very different, exciting experience. I mean I knew the people I went with were somewhere in the darkness and that if I didn’t meet with them after the ride they would come find me. At least, I kept telling myself this for my own sanity’s sake. I also knew that if I kept following the trail it would eventually led me to the safety of my car. Even knowing all this, I still believe that riding at night you will always be lost in a way.
One thing I did that I recommend and it’s pretty much required by anyone who is out in the woods at night is to turn off the lights and experience getting totally lost. When I did this it was a new moon night so the overall experience was further enhanced. As I stood there straddling my bike on a trail. I wondered how much different it would be if I wasn’t as familiar with the trail as I knew I was. The next thing I wondered was will the trail even end? Maybe I went the wrong way! Maybe someone made a new trail for the sole torment of swaying an unsuspecting biker to his eternal rotation of the same trail loop for all eternity. The thought of a hamster in one of those metal wheels popped into my head. Then another thought, a more abrupt one, came to my mind, “You better put on the lights right now before another rider or deer crashes into you.” Heeding my counterpart, I obeyed.
Another equally scary yet exhilarating time I got lost, happened to led me into a cemetery. My oxygen deprived, endorphin tripped out brain led me down some trails I never seen before. They were most likely fire roads and not an actual part of the trail. So after a while I stumbled upon a black, iron clad fence and thought to myself, “Ok, this is definitely not a normal trail obstacle.” This was not your normal iron clad fence either. In fact I never had seen anything even similar to it. It wasn’t too tall, but it was obvious from the design that it was meant to keep people for getting in. The gut piercing sabers on top stared mischievously at me. I didn’t leave a trail of bread crumbs from the start of this maze of fire roads, so I decided to hop the fence (carefully and with my bike as well) and see where the trail took me.
So once I climbed this black, spiky, sharp obstacle, it wasn’t long before I realized I was in a grave yard! It was a little creepy to say the least. This creepiness was further enhanced due to the descending sun. This being the case I pedal through the graveyard at a very fast pace due to the fact that, I was not suppose to be riding my bike between tombstones. Also, due to the fact that it was a graveyard. Both thoughts made me increase my cadence. After a short time frame I again found myself in front of the black, iron clad human skewer and had no chose but to climb over. Upon dismounting from the top of the fence, leaving the cemetery grounds, I got that feeling you get when someone is staring at you. My spidey sense was going off, so I looked around to find a young child watching me from his front lawn across the street. But not for long. The child immediately turned and ran when he noticed that I saw him. I guess I was pretty scary looking to this child. It just so happened that I was in fact scary looking considering the area in which I just came from.
After watching the terror in the child’s face at seeing me. I happened to look down and noticed what I had been wearing. I was dressed like a biker, yes. The thing that put me over the top was the fact that I was wearing a biking jersey that was showing the outline of a skeleton. Poor little guy must have thought the dead really do come out at night. I was laughing the rest of the ride home.
So as you can see, getting lost and then finding your way can be quite the adventure. It completely destroys the standard routine you are use to. So my request to all who are reading this is to, “get lost.”

-Barton-