Perfectly Lost

I'm laying in a tub watching clouds through a little skylight while listening to Brian Eno streaming on a nearby stereo. I have no idea where I am, or very little anyway. I know I'm at the end of a winding country highway somewhere outside of Paonia, Colorado. But I've never been here before, and Paonia is just a funny sounding name I have no associations with. I haven't even looked at a map today to see where it is.

Depending on what Brian Eno piece you happen to be listening to in the tub, you may come to notice that it sounds exactly the same whether your ears are above the water or below.

We started out this morning in Gunnison, Colorado, did some hiking near Crested Butte, then took the Kebler Pass seasonal road through the largest stand of mature aspen trees in the state. At some point on the switchbacks in and out of a canyon carved by the North Fork of the Gunnison river, I began to lose my sense of direction. One moment the sun would be in my eyes, the next it would swing around behind my left shoulder and reappear over my right. None of this much mattered since Kae was doing the navigating, still, by the time we got to our rental house I had no solid sense of where I was.

North Fork of the Gunnison river, Elk Mountains Wilderness, CO.

I've always liked that bumper sticker that says, "Not All Who Wander Are Lost," though I usually make sure my own wanderings include lots of detailed maps. For me, the urge to map one's experience is really just a desire for greater context, a way to know the world more thoroughly. At least that's what I tell myself. By contrast, I know plenty of people who don't bother with maps and never know which way north is - and they couldn't care less. I imagine that their sense of the layout of the world is informed by a personal narrative unencumbered by literal space. Indeed, there are other ways to map the land than with birds-eye schematic approximations of topography. Among indigenous Australians there is a tradition of "songlines." These are navigational song-maps which are sung while crossing vast stretches of the continent's interior. The words of the songs detail landmarks and watering holes as the landscape unfolds before the singer. Even the contour of the melody is intended to describe the lay of the land.

A different sort of verbal mapping helped me explore the limestone caves of central Kentucky when I was a teenager. There were lots of stories about these caves circulating among the more outdoorsy kids at school, but no one I knew had ever been in them. My brother and I had hiked the creek below them plenty of times and knew exactly where to look on the cliffs above for the vegetation that nearly crowded shut the mouths of these wet caves. We'd done some research and knew that wet caves were more inherently stable than dry caves, so while the constant flow of water presented its own challenges, we knew the cave would not collapse on us.  Finally, together with my brother and a couple of buddies, I worked up just enough nerve to chance a trip inside the fabled Chrisman Cave. I  had obtained a hand-drawn map of the cave from some kid's older brother who was in college. It contained a couple of squiggly branching shapes with the words "vestibule" and "chimney," which we knew were words used by professional cave explorers, and so our map seemed legitimate to us. It turned out to be accurate enough to not get us killed, but over subsequent visits to the cave we found that keeping elaborate verbal descriptions was way more useful than trying to picture it. This is how I still remember it: "At the far end of the vestibule look for a small opening down near the floor, about ten feet across and three feet high in the center. Water will be trickling out of this opening. Crawl into it. After about 20 yards the ceiling will come down to less than two feet. You will have to shimmy through a series of very tight spots for the next 200 feet. Wear long pants and a long sleeved shirt, since the floor of the cave is covered with gravel. You will also be in one to two inches of water. Pay close attention to the ceiling. You are looking for a chimney that will give you passage to the upper reaches of the cave. The chimney is a narrow slit that you will be able to stand up in. It widens as it ascends, so you will have to work yourself into the corners to find enough hand/footholds to scramble up the forty or so feet to the next level of the cave. At this point you will be able to stand mostly upright while exploring several winding passages, but mind the floor, as there are several more chimneys coming up..." And so on and so forth. Every time we explored the cave we stayed in there until we were exhausted or freaked out, and each time our descriptions got a little better, yet every time we tried to draw it, we could never agree on how it should look. We explored Chrisman Cave many times but never knew who Chrisman was, and the cave wasn't on any maps.

It turns out the name Paonia is an intentional misspelling of the Latin name for the peony flowers which were brought here by the area's first white settlers. At a loss for a better name to describe their new home, the word "Paeonia" was submitted as the official place name in 1902 when the town was incorporated. But in a draconian effort to enforce simplicity and clarity, the U.S. Postal service decided to approve the name only if the silent "e" were dropped. Hence, Paonia.

Twenty minutes into my soak the water has gone lukewarm and Brian Eno is still nowhere near wrapping up his musical thought.  Out the other window in the bathroom I can see clouds piling up on the horizon in various hues of gray. The view overhead through the skylight is still just wisps of white against the late summer blue. Two versions of the same sky. Two different stories, depending on cropping.  At the moment, I'm content with the blue depiction of the sky overhead, and it occurs to me that lying here is as good a way as any to begin my acquaintance with a place. You've got to start somewhere. Besides, at some point tonight I'll certainly get the maps out.