TAKING DIRECTION

I found this lovely compass rose here:

http://summitstonesadventuremusings.blogspot.com

Which, I must add is an interesting blog post.

Being a person who gets lost easily...

and still dares to venture out,

I have come upon an observation that I'm not sure it true or false.

So here it is right or wrong.

When I ask a female how to get somewhere,

they give me suggestions of landmarks along the way

and trust that my address and the landmarks will show me the path.

Males will also give me landmarks sometimes,

but they add in actual "directions".

By this I mean

North, South, East, West, etc.

I know that they mean well and feel that this will clarify things for me.

No.

If I had a compass in my head...

and I'm sure that many people do, yet I do not...

it would make things easier.

Yes, I can find the sun and I know it rises in the East and sets in the West.

But I don't always know where that is in relation to where I am at

when I need to know it.
(Noon, clouds, night...)

(BTW... moss grows on many sides of a tree, so forget that old saw about it only growing on the North side of a tree!)

I had an interview with a nice man about a job.

He said

"The building complex is very large, so you'll want the building in the North-most 

corner of the complex."

Not wanting him to know that I don't know North from a hole in the ground,

I said 
"OK."

I have actually been lost there before...

it was the big red brick building complex that I ended up at

the very first time I came to visit the man here.

I had to call him to come and lead me to his, now our, home.

I could find my way to the complex blindfolded in a snow storm now.

I asked the man how to find North here.

He pointed across the street.
But this street is not that street.

Later I got the bright idea to ask him for his compass.

I am picturing the sort of compass one would have gotten in a Cracker Jack Box.

What he brought me wasn't.

It does things.
He promptly launched into a lesson about how to use its 
marvelous functions.
He may as well have been Charlie Brown's teacher.
Way too complex for my purpose.
But I listened and tried to understand it
because he obviously delighted in his directional machine.


All I cared about was the Cracker Jack Box prize part.
When he handed it to me,
I held it and pointed in the direction I thought it was pointing North.
No.
The swell gizmo is very sensitive and you must hold it level.
Who knew I couldn't tell level any more than I could find North?


The man looked crestfallen.
He sighed.
He said
"Baby, when you are facing the front doors of the main building...
North is on your Left."


I do know my Right from my Left.
No one had to mark the toes of my Red Ball Jets
with a big "R" or "L".
That was a direction that I could not only take,
but successfully follow.




Now wasn't that sooo much easier?