You Can't Get There From Here

I need to remember this is an adventure while I keep getting lost. Last year when I house sat for three weeks in Seattle, I only got lost once, but here in the suburbs, I can barely find my way down the street. This evening I drove to the nearby Barnes & Noble, a place I had been to just yesterday, and somehow found myself first in Bothell, then in Mill Creek, both suburbs way southeast of Lynnwood, where I'm staying.

Using places like Taco Time, Walgreens and Jack in the Box as landmarks is useless in big cities. There are millions of them, and every strip center in the tri-county area has a Starbucks. My usual good sense of direction failed me, so I finally pulled off the road and resorted to my Google app to steer me back to Lynwood before I ended up back in Idaho.

What should have taken me five minutes took me nearly an hour. Partly because I was so far off course, but largely because it was afternoon rush hour. Cars everywhere. Yet drivers didn’t seem angry or stressed. Perhaps the nice sunny weather had something to do with that. Let’s see how they react in the rain.

Maybe I’m distracted. I think I’m still in shock by uprooting myself from Ohio. I keep expecting to randomly run into someone I know. It may be wishful thinking, but it’s not impossible. A few years ago my father and I were in the art museum in Chicago and I literally bumped into a woman I know in Zanesville.

I do know people here, though. I have met twice with Elizabeth’s and my mutual friend Cat, and Saturday I am meeting cousins for breakfast. And I’m not alone; my two boys are with me.

Tomorrow I begin looking at condos.