Runs in the Family

There are four of us Johns siblings, and all of us were born with no sense of direction. I alluded to it in yesterday’s blog.  Anyone who marvels that someone can get lost on a well-traveled and familiar path, with enormous, can’t-miss-them markers such as bridges and high-rise buildings, simply because they take a small detour, has never met a Johns. 

Jay, the only guy among us, does not admit to it quite as readily as Lynn and Betsy and I do.  We think it’s hysterical.  I don’t know if it’s a recessive or dominant gene, but roughly half of the eight nieces and nephews seem to have it.

Sam has escaped the family curse; he has a natural sense of where he is at all times.  Jackson has inherited it, and I've known it since he was old enough to walk.  We'd go to the doctor, or somewhere he'd been many times, and upon leaving the office, he'd make a confident right turn out the door, when the exit was to the left.  Like me, it's almost more of an opposite sense of direction than a missing one. The third time he asked me to remind him how to get to Lady Bird Lake, I wanted to bellow "Lord have mercy, child! Go down Congress Avenue and, when you get to the bridge, go under it instead of over it."  But I didn't.  Because I understand.

My friends find no end of hilarity in this affliction.  I never have to worry about us running out of things to talk about.  If there's a lull in the conversation, talk will invariably turn to "Remember the time when Leslie....."  Barbara will remind them of the time I asked for directions back to my house via North Mopac, and she watched in disbelief as I made an immediate left onto South Mopac.  Or Janette will recall the time we all had dinner at her new house, and after getting careful directions back to Northwest Hills, I drove aimlessly for 20 minutes before coming face-to-face with a sign that read "Welcome to Hutto." 

There are others like me, but I defy anyone to top this next one.  About ten years ago, we were all moving Cindy into a new duplex.  We parked our cars in the alley behind her place, loaded her stuff in through the back door, and helped her set up.  At about 1:00 o'clock, I brightly noted that I hadn't yet seen her place from the front.  So I walked out the door, down the walkway, looked back at her home, turned around to survey the neighborhood, and went back up the walkway....into the wrong duplex.

There is an upside to all this.  I have spent so much time lost that it doesn't faze me in the least.  I have jumped on planes and been dumped out in London, Greece, Japan, Switzerland, Kenya, with no plan of how to get to my hotel from there. It'll happen somehow. What's that serenity prayer? Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. At this point, I don't think I even want to change. It's kind of fun being me.  J

Banks and I did the lake after work.  The orange striped hurdles were still up but there were no cops monitoring them, so we all ignored them.  One runner jumped over it like a track star!  I don't know what it was about tonight, but I saw two snakes (babies, really about the size of worms) and one HUGE tortoise lumbering across the path.  He really stopped traffic, and of course, I didn't have my camera with me tonight.  Man, I'm sweaty.  Off to the showers.