When asked if he’d ever been lost Daniel Boone replied, “I’ve never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days once.” I’ve been turned around myself – might have even called it lost:

• Ended up in the parking lot after hiking six miles in a hail storm. Had a map. Needed a compass.
• Went up the wrong chute on Lucy’s Foot Pass last summer and couldn’t get over to the other side. Had to bail and hike back down.
• Hiked around Red Devil Lake instead of directly to it inciting panic in my husband when he found me missing.
• Followed a creek eastward for about a mile alone on an after dinner saunter only to look up and face the western setting sun. My first thought: God moved the sun, not that the creek curved.

Other times to prevent getting lost I’ve gotten hints of intel from others, like the time a ranger atop Kearsarge Pass told us which side of the creek was easier to bushwhack through in Gardiner Basin. I’ve used Secor’s book, High Sierra Peaks, Passes, and Trails to plot many a cross-country Sierra adventure. Other times I’ve wandered lost in a dense mountain forest following others I’ve trusted. (Thanks Rolland for introducing me to cross-country hiking.)

I’ve even taught map and compass lessons to my clients. My most valuable lessons: Stay found. Know where you are. Know where the trail goes. Know where the water is (it’s in the low places just like in the bottom of your water glass). Keep an eye on what to expect and note it as you pass. Know which general direction your car is (baseline), so you can get back to it. Know your drainages (handrails). Like Muir said, “The creeks and rivers are the streets of the Sierra.”

But I’ve never stepped onto a tail or path or into the wild with neither a map OR compass, an idea of where I would be going, what to expect, or without friends for support and to argue our way toward the correct route.

This path through cancer is new territory and I have no map OR compass. Even though this is a recurrence of the original invasion from twenty years ago, which was also uncharted territory, metastatic cancer (I hate to even be associated with the words) is a whole different animal. You can’t just cut out the tumor, radiate the lymph nodes, and fry the rest of your body with chemo and hope you got it all. (Been there. Done that.) It’s all over. It has to be managed like a smelly tent-mate you can’t get rid of and you hope he doesn’t stab you through the heart in the middle of the night.

Afraid of the information I’ll find, I try to stay away from the internet. I’ve even told my doc that I’m too scared to know some of the statistics. I don’t want to know how steep and rocky the passes will be, how terrifying the stream crossings, how harsh the dry spells, or how this trip will end. What I do have are the creeks and rivers of my heart that I follow with confidence and friends and family to support me as I bumble my way along. (Thank you all for the cards, emails, texts, phone calls, food shopping, and surprise watermelons!)

Where does one learn how to navigate the landscape of their life? I don’t know. I suppose there are those who are taught by loving parents. In my late thirties I found myself as a blob of mud on the riverbank – formless, rootless, and more than a might turned around. Over time I fashioned myself with hands of love and compassion into the shape I was meant to be. I found myself most comfortable without a roof. I discovered that more than anything, I wanted to wander the Sierra. I found that being myself was my greatest gift (who knew!?), that friends were gold, that being gentle with myself was my path, and that my heart was my northern star.

I did not learn this from my mother.

My mother, always the martyr, would tell me things like, “Yah, I was in the hospital six months ago with a heart problem.” I’d respond in shock, “Why didn’t you tell me!?” her answer, “Well, there was nothing you could do.” In her eighties at the time, I knew my mother. I knew she muscled through her heart adventure alone and afraid, no map, no support, and saved up the telling for just the right moment, when she was guaranteed the biggest reaction. I was aware that this was a dance. I was tired of it AND I was hurt that my presence and support would mean nothing, that my shocked response was more important, was the attention she craved. The more shocked I was, the more she felt she mattered.

I have since wondered what neglect my mother suffered as a child that made her come to believe that shocking people with news of past drama was the closest she could feel to connection. Of course, in me it only created a momentary reaction that quickly turned into hurt, anger, and despair at my impotence over past and future events – probably everything she felt as a neglected child growing up as the “surprise gift” to older immigrant parents, over-worked and overwhelmed managers of a nineteen twenties speak easy in the Midwest. And no map provided except for what the nuns taught her: fear, shame, and suffering. If she survived by manipulating people into making her feel that she mattered, well, one does what one needs to in this big scary world to feel found.