I have always had a very uncanny sense of direction. It is a
gift and a treasure that is a part of the essence of who I am.
"Sense of direction" is the ability to know one's location and
perform wayfinding. It is related to cognitive maps, spatial awareness, and
spatial cognition
When I was just a little girl, maybe 6 or 7 years of age, my
mother took us on a trip to visit my Aunt (her cousin) in New York City, New Jersey
to be exact. One day after feeling cooped up in the house my mother decided to
take me and my little sister for a walk. We walked around the streets until we
were feeling tired and then my mother verbally told us that we were done and that
we would head back now. We walked for a while until I noticed that we had
passed the same corner with the shop with the pretty clothes in the window twice.
I grabbed my mothers coat and tugged at it and said “mom you are going in
the wrong way” she shrugged me off like I was just a little kid who had
never traveled anywhere and didn’t have the faintest idea about what I was
talking about. So, after we went around the same street with the same markers
that I had noticed the first two times we had passed them, I saw my mother
become frustrated and go into a shop and say something to the lady at the
counter and then come out looking even more worried. I would learn later that
my mother didn’t know the address of where my aunt lived. By this time my
little sister who was only 4 at the time was complaining that she was tired and
I saw my mother get even more frustrated. I was a brave little girl and I took
a hold of my mothers’ hand and told her to “come on I know the way home”. Sure,
enough I used my little girl memory and within 15 minutes I had followed the photographic
pictures that I had stored in my mind and we were home at my aunt’s house. It
was brave of my mother to listen to me, but I feel she had no choice but to trust
me. She shared this story often to explain to people how special she thought I
was.
I would rely on this “special” gift many times through out
my life and it would direct me back to places, people and things.
Once when we were on a visit to Israel with a group of
worship dancers. We were heading back to the apartment that we had rented and we accidentally got on the wrong bus to go home. When we got off the bus to try to
find our way, I recognized a bush type of tree that we had walked by earlier
that Sabbath" morning and I instantly knew the way to get us back home. One woman
that we had rented the apartment with said to me that she felt it was in the
other direction. She had been to Israel many times before and stayed at this
apartment, but I knew she was incorrect. We had a standoff and I decided that I
was confident about where we were to go and it was late at night and I didn’t want
to get lost in the dark. This posed a problem for the other ladies as they had
to choose which one of us to follow. Personally, I think it made no sense to
follow after me but I was confident and my sense of direction was something
that if you had known me for any amount of time, even though it seemed illogical,
you would trust my pattern. All the ladies decided to go with me and the one
woman walked in the opposite direction. As we walked the streets of Jerusalem I
pointed out in the dark, to the other women land marks that we had passed earlier
on that morning on our walk into the old city. The women couldn’t remember but
they trusted me very similarly in the way that my mother had that chilly day in
Jersey. As we rounded that last street and they saw the lights of the apartment
building I could tell that they were stunned that I knew the way and that the
other woman was in fact lost. We were right about going in this direction but
we made one crucial mistake. The other woman had the key to the apartment so we
had to wait outside in the dark for another 2 hours till she found her way back
home that evening. Lesson learned.
On that same trip it was our final days in Israel and we on
our second visit back to the wailing wall. We had one more gate to visit and
had been unable to locate it and we decided to go back to Sukkot Hallel a 24-
hour worship place located on Mt Zion. Again, I told the ladies the way I
thought we should go to get there as we were walking, they felt that it was in
another direction. We came to an impasse where we discussed that we would just
go over the hill and see from a higher place where we were and then decide what
to do from there. As we came to the top of the hill, right there to our right
was the last gate that we had trouble finding and over the other side was the
24- hour place of worship we were trying to get to. Again, my sense of
direction was right and we were right where we needed to be. The ladies asked
me how did I know this was where we were supposed to go and to be truthful, I did
not have a logical solution, I just knew.
I have used this gift in so many amazing situations. When I
think back about it, I realize that I have come to rely on this amazing uncanny
sense of direction in every area of my life.
