Of Paris and penguins
Navigation is not my strong point. I am not sure why I have such a block when it comes to finding my way, but I always end up in places that I wasn’t planning on. I am just starting to not get lost in my own town and I have been here for awhile. Regardless of the situation, regardless of my age, I still feel a knot in my stomach when I don’t know where to go.
I think about a time when I was alone in Paris last year, as the others were headed in a separate direction. I needed to get to the other side of the city to say goodbye to a new friend. Knowing that I get lost, my friends prepped me on how I was going to do this. It was a rough time in my life, and Paris was spent in my own space, thinking my own thoughts. I was confused and reflective and not in the clearest of mindsets. I set off though, not speaking or reading much French at all, and after a bit I got even more confused and got on a series of trains heading in the wrong directions, coming to new stops that I didn’t know. After some time of this, I became overwhelmed on one of those trains and I just sat there and wept a bit, thinking that I would never find my way back to where I wanted to be. As I watched all these beautiful little towns pass in the window, I could see my reflection in the window too. And that made me cry even more because I could see just that this wasn’t about being lost on the train as much as it seemed. My reflection showed me that this was about being lost in myself. Somewhere along the way, my own north star had become cloudy and I couldn’t see my way.
This nice man had noticed my tears and although he didn’t speak my language and I didn’t speak his, he tried to help me figure out where to go from this small map that I had found on the ground. I knew where I wanted to be, but had no idea of how to get there. He somehow knew this and kindly stayed to make sure that I got on the right train the next time around and that I wouldn’t be lost anymore. After that, a piece of me really wasn’t so lost after all.
And it is moments like that, when you are a little lost--in life, in love, in Paris-- that you are just broken down enough to remember not to be arrogant, and not to be too hard on yourself either. It is humbling to know that we don’t have all the answers, but other people usually have some of the ones we need.
A film like March of the Penguins makes me happy because all the penguins always know where to go. I wish this for myself really. They walk all over Antarctica with a mission-they know exactly where they want to end up to lay their eggs. There is no wandering, no aimless marching, but it is all for a purpose that they never lose sight of. They know what they want and there is no time to waste with what they don’t. The most beautiful thing about it though is that they all do this together—they take turns following and they take turns leading and they trust the one in front of them to get them to where they need to be, and they trust their own instincts about which direction to head. And eventually after a long time, they get to the place they have been dreaming about.
And I guess that that is the point of it all. We may not know where we are going, or in my case how to get there, but somehow without even knowing it, we will look down and realize that despite it all, we have found our way.
posted by Mary @ 10:38 PM
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