sparkignitefire

For years, or maybe decades you develop the skill of thinking and playing a few steps ahead of where you are. I love this about navigation and running an orienteering course or race. You see where you need to be, operative word, and plot the course to get there. Having a map, while lovely can be deceptive. Not in a hurtful way, remembering it is a piece of paper with print on it, not live. So you plot your course and do your best to work around the time suckers on paper. Doing these with a team (think cut-men) is fun and when you are working well together it is crazy fun.

I told you a story about being in Borneo, in a section of the race where we entered a sliver of the jungle no one had been through in over 200 years. They thought it was haunted and head-hunters had used part of these “trails”- I use that very loosely as someone could walk through 30 mins ahead of you and literally you would have no idea. The jungle took those foot-steps back instantaneously. The team entered this part and within a couple of hours we knew this was like nothing……nothing else on earth. The canopy was like broccoli, totally dense and 150-200 feet above us. Very little sunlight passed through the trees and everything was alive. Everything moved, the sounds were like having your earphones turned up to 8 all the time. The race directors told us what to watch out for, anything red-bad and will kill you, falling trees-it sounds like lightning and they fall in a split second, and your radio will not work-so navigate well, you are toast if you get lost, we will not find you more than likely. There was a lot of talk right before the race started they were worried they would really lose people so days before a team went in and did that section and marked it with tape. We were not told this until moments before entering so there was a general sigh of relief though quickly quashed when we could not really follow the tape. Remember the trees falling? It became apparent that one tree falls and the whole area completely changes shape. When it rained, and it did every day, it was like someone turned a faucet on high and left it on, right over your head. It would rain for about an hour solid. Then there was when the lights went out. Around 4:45-5pm each day, it was if someone taped black garbage bags over the windows and turned the lights out. You could not see your hand 6 inches in front of your face. We had a map……they were usually in the range of 1:200,000 and up and 30-40 years old. mmmmmm. Google topo maps and most state maps are 1:24,000, you get the idea, the smaller the number the more information on the map.

Having the team I did was instrumental in getting through that section. The red things, rain, heat, a map that told you what part of earth you were on and the dark, these were all things we had to think one step ahead of. Sometimes we did and sometimes we didn’t. There were times we did navigate ahead and we still had a road-block, fallen trees or a river that was 6 feet above its crest and raging at class 3. We asked each other for help. We leaned on each other. We laughed and cried with each other. Each one of us took the lead and each one of us followed.

There was a surreal moment (not like every moment in that place wasn’t-this one came pretty close to #1) when we came through a dense section and there was this little hut with people standing outside drinking Fanta and playing cards. Andy went in and came out with three popsicles. Rule #1 in racing, always bring native money. It was if  he had bought a Maybach for each of us and a driver named Peach. It was heaven.

So we navigate. We move our pieces. Sometimes we can and sometimes we need to follow.

One of my favs……know thyself.

It’s a lifetime of research and digging. Ask for help when there is heavy lifting. (refer to the piano story) Know sometimes you have to be carried.

Love you