Field notes from the lost and found

Hello Reader,

Recently, on a podcast episode, I was asked what advice I’d give to someone who's feeling lost. I had practical answers in my back pocket, but the answer that felt true was one I imagined most people wouldn’t want to hear: “Stay in the feeling of being lost.”

Because maybe being lost is how you find yourself.

I grew up amidst moving boxes, my mom’s futon, unfortunately, following us everywhere, along with Peruvian wool throws. A sore back and itchy skin weren’t the only sources of discomfort. The feeling of being lost followed me around like a cocker spaniel puppy.

I wanted to escape visiting a place I’m from and feeling like a stranger. Going to my grandparents’ apartment in Washington Heights, eating Kugel and sipping Manischewitz, feeling like there were codes I didn’t have access to. Being sent from Brooklyn to my mom's hometown in Québec for summers as a kid, not understanding French, my wild brown curls out of place amongst blondes.

I desperately tried to find where I belonged in sororities (I lasted one meeting), synagogues (didn’t stick since only my Dad was Jewish), and subcultures, from wearing a track suit at a Black Sheep concert to waving my arms in the air amidst glitter and strobe lights in NYC clubs. I tried to find myself, a sense of belonging, a home. I tried to claw myself out of feeling lost.

The more you try to find a place that feels like home, the more nomadic you become.

It’s so tempting to take the next exit just to know where you are. But staying ‘lost’ is how you find yourself, however counterintuitive this might sound.

You realize you don’t need a place, family, a role, or a destination to define you. You discover that feeling lost doesn’t mean losing yourself.

When I stopped looking for a city limit sign, I realized the compass is part of me. I needed to be in it and stop trying to find my way. Pinning myself down on a map is impossible, because just like the ephemera around me, I am changing, shifting, and circulating like garlic and sugar-scented air in a Chinatown restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, AC blasting.

Lost means being unable to find our way or something that cannot be retrieved. Maybe it’s a feeling of having lost something. A part of us is left on the roadside, making space for a new version to grow. Our own terrain is foreign. Everything looks different from this strange vantage point.

I’ve learned ‘being lost’ is a signal that I'm on my way (or something is on its way to me). As Rumi says, the path appears when we start walking.

The road is where ideas, insights, and visions coalesce, even though we don't hear them click into place. It can feel like nothing is happening, we’re going nowhere, that we don’t even know where we’re headed, but something is revving and stirring.

I’ve been adrift recently, feeling an urge for more, for something I can’t place. An internal churning, cream that’s not yet butter. I don’t want to lose sight of what’s in front of me as I pine for that golden destination in my mind.

I’m drawn to a new creative venture, but I don’t know when or what it will be. What’s pulling me off track is the desire to find it instead of being in that neither here nor there, could be anywhere! feeling.

It’s discombobulating, hearing the sound of what’s coming without being able to make out what it is. Uncomfortable. At this point, we can lean on trust and let go of buttery desires, the need to find out now.

Knowing what is for us will make its way to us, especially if we stay in the lost feeling. Knowing it’s all unfolding. Knowing the mystery is the sweetest, juiciest part. That we get to feel the thrill and panic of feeling lost, knowing we’re not really lost at all (we’re right here in the middle of the Milky Way, worrying about misplacing the map).

So, if you’re feeling lost, just be with (and in) it.

When you can accept where you are, the outline of an unbelievable horizon comes into view (eventually), but you have to stay in it, not moving further away from what is trying to find you.

It’s no wonder we want to be found, or find solid ground, plant our flags in pockmarked moons, locate recognizable territory, when we’re on a planet spinning 1,000 mph across one of 200 billion observable galaxies.

We can find each other in it, remembering we’re not alone. Remembering being lost is part of change. This awkward growth illuminates the dark road, making it less ‘American Horror Story’ and more ‘The Hangover’.

We’ll get lost and found, again and again. Sometimes, we'll lose ourselves to find who we are. They’re two sides of the same coin; they’re a package deal. One cannot be avoided without missing the other.

If we learn to stay in the feeling, knowing we’re not lost at all, but in the process of being found, of creating, possibilities will open like a time-lapse of a rose in bloom.

Keep creating,