The Victory of Getting Lost

Heading home from my business trip I found myself very close from the small town of my childhood. The stimulus to see it again at least through the car window as a short film was so vivid that I even didn’t notice how started to investigate the Google maps.

Yes, it was still small. Several parallel streets with some perpendiculars were forming tiny net destined to catch living humans and to trap for long years, very often until the end of their life. My mother was from this town. Her parents worked hard to pay her medical studies in the Capital. Quite soon she met and married my dad there. It was beginning of the fourth academic year when the happy couple welcomed my arrival to this world. Despite some blessed moments soon the screaming presence of newborn became a threat and a challenge – how to pair plain but energy consuming babysitting with deep diving the complex clinical subjects? The devoted grandparents extended helping hand. My crib was moved to their home, and I was nested there for several years. The memories about these years still visit me evoking mixed feelings, but the sour-bitter ones are fading in the light of a cherished time with my grandpa. What did I like most about that time available for me because of his early retirement? It’s difficult to rank. How to compare hearty potatoes soup to learning playing checkers, or letting me to sew on the button to collecting lime blossoms? But today driving far aside of highway and watching the distant line of meadow meeting the dark endless wall of trees, I remembered our daytrips to the woods, especially, one of them.

That late summer day had already been marked in our calendar with the newly invented keyword mushroomizing. This meant that after waking up and having breakfast, we would make a few more sandwiches, fill a bottle with water, and set off. That time we also took along a graceful wicker basket and an old short-bladed knife for cutting mushrooms. The weather was cloudy, but quiet. Following the winding, little-used country road, we reached the edge of the woods pretty quickly. In a minute Grandpa found the narrow path we had known from before, and we plunged into the depths of the green mystery as two passionate explorers very different in their external shapes but united by curiosity.

As soon as the wings of spruce branches spread out behind us, Grandpa paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and a playful smile enlightened his gently wrinkled face. I breathed in too, and immediately understood the hint – the scent of mushrooms was in the air. Since this was not the first time, I understood that we could expect a catch. Who would be the first to find one? We looked carefully under our feet and a few steps away, around tree trunks and between mossy clumps, beneath fallen birch leaves and bark chips. Finally – Grandpa squatted down, rummaged in the white crispy moss, and lifted up a boletus. Wow! How handsome it was—a solid stem, as if carved from wood, and a shiny hooded cap shimmering with several shades of brown. I was delighted, and at the same time envious, longing to find one just like it and to be entitled to sing the little song Grandpa had taught me: “I won’t go home empty-handed, to my bag boletus landed.” But my luck was absent—I picked the colorful russulas that had beckoned from afar, gathered sneaky chanterelles from under the moss, but not a single boletus. Sensing my disappointment, Grandpa suggested we go further on, pushing through a strip of shrubs toward the white birch trunks gleaming in the distance. Beyond that we got into a young pine grove, fragrant with resin. And there I found it—my boletus. Smaller than Grandpa’s, not yet grown tall, perfectly round. Hooray, at last! And just as I was laying this beauty into the basket, I spotted another. Soon Grandpa bent down too. Again and again! The basket slowly grew heavier, pulling down Grandpa’s hand.

Then, as the clouds thickened unexpectedly, it grew dim and began to drizzle. The penetrating raindrops cooled our excitement. We decided to head home, but… it wasn’t clear which way. After a brief discussion, we moved toward what seemed like a clearing of light. And it wasn’t just our imagination. With a bit more effort, we stepped out of the woods. What an uncomfortable surprise! It wasn’t our familiar edge of the woods—in front of us laid a fenced meadow and a large herd of cows, around which circled a mounted herdsman in a long dark raincoat. Grandpa turned to me and said that he knew this place—it was on the opposite side from where we needed to be, but that didn’t matter; now it was clear which way we had to go. We slipped back into the forest and, ignoring the dampness seeping through our clothes, walked as quickly as we could in the right direction. Our feet sank into the moss, dry fir cones crackled beneath, and we covered our faces with our hands so as not to be struck by the slender branches whipping back at us. After another little while we saw a clearing of light again. Finally! Smiles began to spread across our faces as we stepped out to the edge of woods and… saw the same meadow, the cows, and the herdsman.

In that moment it felt as if all our remaining strength had drained away, replaced by despair, perhaps even fear… I don’t know exactly what Grandpa was thinking then, but after a short silence he looked at me and winked. He said this must be one of those places where devils lead children astray—and that we would outsmart them. I didn’t feel as confident as he when we turned back into the woods again. But it seemed that an invisible compass had switched on in Grandpa’s head. Whenever we tended to go left, he kept turning the opposite way, and gradually we began to recognize the landmarks—birches, the thicket, and finally the edge of woods, this time truly ours… And after that, nothing else mattered anymore.

Much later, when I grew older, I read somewhere that people lost in the forest almost always end up walking in circles, because one leg is usually stronger than the other and with every step it nudges the body away from a straight path… a devilishly good lesson.

Now, sitting in the car and watching the scenes of my childhood town glide past, I realized that in reality it became distant to me. The places have changed, and I no longer knew anyone who lived here. Only the memories that flooded in were still close and precious to me, and getting lost in the forest felt like a victory I can still rejoice in to this day… It was just the right moment to return to the highway.