September 2012; Madrid, Spain.

Desert dunes.

Nothing but desert dunes, or what appeared to dunes of sand, were visible ahead of me. I looked behind me at the train station I had just exited to double check and it quickly confirmed one thing: this had to be a massive joke played on me.

The night before, after strolling on Gran Via, one of the bustling streets of Madrid, to shop at H&M, peek into the flagship Zara store and eat one of the most expensive solo dinners of my life, I meticulously charted out both walking and Metro routes for the next day, to avoid what had miraculously become my destiny: being lost.

I couldn’t understand how I could be lost after confirming which direction I would go in on both Google Maps and what was not a crinkled map I had been given from the fine (old) gentleman’s loft I was renting.

But I was. And all I saw were sand dunes.

There are deserts in Spain?

Sweat began to sneakily trickle down the back of my red maxi dress I wore and my feet, clad in gold braided sandals, burned from the ultraviolet rays of the Spanish sol. There was no one around, except for a few stray Spaniards parking their cars alongside the Metro station, and I kept walking. There had to be a store or restaurant nearby where I could hail a cab.

I was walking for the next five minutes.

I passed children playing basketball with a deflated ball, throwing the ball which barely bounced against the headboard, making the sound of a dull thud. The children skittered and stared as I walked past them. I kept walking, with a slight shrug.

Just around the corner I heard music and as my stride neared me closer the music, I discovered it was a restaurant. I squealed on the inside, knowing that I was that much closer to being on my way to my destination.

When I entered, sat down at the bar, smiled and said hello, I expected to be greeted back, but was only met with confusion. Flies interrupted my train of thought as they landed on my fingers and I shooed them away, only then realizing that this restaurant was dingy, dirty and explained precisely why there was no one dining except for the man sitting to the right of me at the bar.

“Can you call me a cab?”

I asked, looking at the man behind the counter, who seemed to be the sole employee in the vicinity. He stared blankly at me, smiled and shrugged, before offering a simple explanation.

“No…speak…English.”

Shit, shit, shit!

I turned to the fellow next to me and he smiled as well. I was the solo American and English speaker, stranded who knows where and didn’t speak enough Spanish to figure out how the hell to get to my destination.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman with her children shuffle into the restaurant, bringing with them a cloud of dust and dirt from just beyond the door.  The children were restless, loud and she yelled, “Vale! Vale! Vale!”  repeatedly to get them settled and sitting at a table.

I sighed and looked up to a futbol game on a 20-inch boxy television suspended on a stand in the corner. From one peer at my phone, I determined I still had plenty of time to figure this out. I closed my eyes and held my head in my hands and exhaled, my entire body distressing with a heavy, shaky breath.

When I opened my eyes, the sun now streaming in through the windows in front of the bar, the man to my left handed me his cell phone. Looking at him strangely, I took the phone after he made a motion that suggested I take it. I looked down at the screen and realized he had pulled up a translation device. I texted that I had gotten lost and needed a cab to come pick me up from here and take me to Calle de Orense. I pressed “traduzco” before handing the Droid over back to him and once he looked at my message he rattled off Spanish at an unintelligible speed. The employee picked up the phone and within five minutes, I was on my way with a “Ciao” and smile from him.

———

In a couple months, it will be two years since I uprooted my life from Stone Mountain, Georgia to thousands of miles away, across and oceans and several timezones to begin a new journey in Madrid, Spain. It will also be two years since I began my journey on this blog, one intended to share alongside the journey of my life that was spiraling out into this beautiful direction.

I think back often to that trip in September of 2012 to Madrid often. I think about what if I had not taken that leap to even go. What if I had not dared to silence the negative voices telling me I was crazy for going to Europe, for the first time, alone. I think about how much of my life would still be in a standstill. Would I be the person I am today? Would I be the woman I am today?

There are choices to be made in each moment, choices which have the capacity to change the course of our lives in either minute or major ways. And we can’t undo any of these choices. We can only reflect on the magnanimity of them in the aftermath, whether our choices have led to good or bad outcomes or a mixed bag.

I’ve been especially thinking back that trip in September of 2012 to Madrid lately in terms of the theme of being lost. What does it mean and what does it feel like to not know where you are headed, even when you’ve planned with your best of intentions? When you embark on a journey with a map in hand, a clear idea of where your destination is and no Plan B? And what happens when Plan A, the only option you pre-determined there was, bottoms out? When it fails and you’re sorely disappointed, beyond in ways which you can express?

Lost in a maze. Life has not made any fucking sense to me as of late. A tailspin. A tidal wave. One of those lame corn mazes you go to with friends in the fall and you have to weave in and out of small, confined spaces in order to try to find your way out. Only, there’s no true exit in this corn maze. It’s just a perpetual, slow, morose, depressing, somber stroll, aimlessly drifting around. Grasping for sense, for reason, for answers.

That’s been me.

I had a plan. My plan was to go to London for grad school. My plan was to become an expat once again. But my plan didn’t work out. My plan didn’t come to pass. My plan fell apart in front of my eyes despite all my efforts to have an outcome of otherwise.

People tell me the timing wasn’t right. It wasn’t meant to be. There’s a season for everything. Everything happens for a reason. But what I can’t reconcile is what this means for the all abiding faith and hope I clutch and cling to as my inner compass. I felt this move with a great deal of certainty it was happening yet— it didn’t. How can I believe and trust in my sense of knowing? How can I trust me again? How can I trust the Universe? How can I trust God? How can I trust any divine order? And what the hell am I supposed to do now?

One of my favorite spiritual teachers Pema Chödron talks a lot in many of books of encountering life as a continuous sense of groundless — that is, accepting life is a series of moments where we realize there is always shaky ground beneath us. Realizing no matter how we may thrust or manipulate our lives to be peaceful and seamless, we ultimately have no control over certain things which may happen. And that many of life’s elements are accepting this and everything that surrounds us being in a state of impermanence, swinging between presently existing and within the throes of falling away. She is also careful to consistently note we try so hard to escape we all chase the unknown, not knowing what is around the corner or sometimes not being able to make sense of the direction our lives take.

Guess I’m starting to grasp this for myself in grave, sweeping ways.

And this is life. This is living. This is knowing the only knowing I have is that I know nothing at all, that I have no clue what is going on, that I have no clue what is next, and that I remain lost, drifting to and fro, hoping at one point or another, the clarity will come.

Hoping the clarity will come.