The Lost & Found Again

There's a certain degree of instability of mental state that tends to follow shortly after realizing that you are utterly and completely lost. However, remain lost for long enough and you may begin to lose yourself in the adventure that you find yourself on. The panic that had seemed at first to be so near, simply fades into nothingness as a sense of discovery takes its place. At this point you are no longer lost, but exploring until you can find yourself again.

Of course, these words aren't purely for the sake of me sharing knowledge; they are the conclusion I found myself arriving at after a weekend of what some might term bad luck, but I like to think of as an opportunity to learn more about this place. Nonetheless, I did, in all conventional terms, get lost multiple times. The first couple were unintentional, but the experience grew on me and I then purposely started wandering off to see what I may find.

To start, I rose early Saturday morning to get a jog in before a tour we had scheduled. I started off down a few familiar streets that I had made a route of before, but feeling particularly spritely I sought to extend my previous route by what I thought was only a couple of blocks. Well a couple of blocks turned into a couple more and before you know it . . . yes, I was lost. Wonderfully I stumbled upon a footbridge overpass that directed me back into Sydney Uni and back into the realm of the know, at least in my internal GPS.

This jogging detour put me a bit behind schedule and inevitably set me up for my second bought with the ways of being lost. After a quick shower, I left the hostel by myself (everyone else was in front of me) and caught the train down to Museum Station as we had been instructed to do. I was a running behind at this point but I still thought I could arrive at the location on time on foot. Here's where I went wrong; I underestimated the distance from the station to the Paddington Reservoir (our tour location) and disregarded the suggestion to catch a bus for this leg of the journey.

So I set off, thankfully in the right direction, and hoped for the best. Soon after, my mind started to dig into that pit of worries and I pulled out my phone to call Gretchen and Jul to inquire as to there position. As I did, the two of them passed by in the bus I was meant to be on and that was the last I saw of any of my classmates. Having been encouraged that I was on the right track from the girls, I trudged on with hastened pace in an attempt to reach the destination on time, but block by block it was obvious that my efforts were not going to deliver the results I was searching for.

Now why I got lost to the extent to which I did must have something to do with my unconcious propelling me into the unknown, because I literally walked right past the Paddington Reservoir and just kept on going. To my benefit, the reservoir is a submerged structure with little at ground level to point out it's existence, at least from across a busy street. Yes, I was on the wrong side of the road . . . my mistake. Anyways, I got the feeling I had passed my destination when the dense Paddington development gave way to 6 lanes of speeding highway traffic. Another call to Jenna kept me thinking that I still had further to go though and so I pushed on. Past Centennial Park, past Bondi Junction and you know, I probably would have kept on going if the road I was supposed to be following hadn't abruptly ended after that.

At this point it was about an hour and a quarter after the tour had started and I had flushed all worry from my mind. In all reality, if you're going to be more than half an hour late to almost anything . . . what's the point. It's not that I wasn't trying to find the place; I did try . . feverishly for about an hour, but as I've stated before, after a while you just seep into a state of relaxation that stems from the loss of care. When you can cast aside those things in your life causing you stress, it doesn't take much to keep you in a state of content. I ended up catching a bus back the way I came and arriving in time for a group photo before everyone dispersed. I'd love to tell you some interesting tid-bits about the Paddington Reservoir after all this, but understandably, our tour guide wasn't too keen on going through it all again for me.

So when it came down to it, my final arrival at the proper location furnished no benefits to my position. This being said, i was now hungry to venture forth into the unknown and see what I might find. Returning from the direction from which I had just come, I veered off into an inviting array of foliage with Dannielle by my side. She was akin to reach the marketplace at Bondi Junction to fulfill her shopping desires so quickly viewing a nearby map we had our general direction set. I escorted her to a corner of what I'd found to be Centennial Park and watched her vanish back into the noise of urbanity. As for myself, I drifted off into the woods and my parkland adventure had begun.

Stopping here and there to marvel at native flora and fauna I lost myself again, but in a state of relaxation instead of panic. I kept sauntering around what seemed like a never-ending sequence of forest and open space until abruptly emerging onto a network of interconnected ponds. Before me lay an image of pure beauty; diverse flocks of birds I'd never seen before gently nestled amongst the landscape. Black swans guiding there baby chicks into the water, a goose of some sort perched on the end of a pier, and not another human in sight. As I stood there, letting it all sink in, I realized that this moment would have not held the same weight if I had know of its existence prior to finding it.

There is an undefinable quality of spontaneity that is vanquished from existence once we begin to order all of our actions into a regimented schedule. I went on to discover much more that day, not returning to the hostel until after nightfall. I realize that there are certain dangers to the practice of getting lost, and I am not implying that such a way of life is safe or fit for everybody. However, the feelings that I maintained while in that state were so powerful that I cannot disregard their existence. I will withhold from urging others to follow in my footsteps, but for those willing to take a chance in the name of adventure; GOOD ON YA!