No Sense Of Direction

While traveling in Tennessee with my sister Becca my lack of direction became embarrassingly evident to me. I get lost in malls with just one turn! I have to stop myself at doorways to make myself remember which way I just came from before I go in, otherwise when I go out I will head right back in the direction that I just came from. (Our malls are not huge either.) While out Christmas shopping this sort of problem can waste a lot of valuable browsing time!

As we traveled the strange streets my sister drove while I studied the maps to see what exits were coming up and which way we should turn. I would say, we need to turn right on to "such and such" an exit and she would ask, "Okay? Which way is that? North or South?"

Well, let me find the funny little pointer thingy I would mumble as I turned the map around.

*crumple, crumple*

"Okay! It's North ....I think!" (Poor Sis.)

By the time I figured that North, South sillyness out I could see the right road exit coming up and I'd start flaying my arms, pointing and saying, "This way! This way!" My lack of direction didn't do us much good, relationship-wise, on that trip.

I can't understand when people refer to their inner sense of direction. I admit to being seriously handicapped in that area.

I've been told that people with a negative sense of direction could possibly have a deficiency of iron in the skullbone which will make them less sensitive to the magnetic north and so less able to rotate themselves and know their position related to the Earth's magnetic north. Sounds good to me and I think it sounds so scientific and smart to say so when I get lost.

Since I don't seem to have the directional gift I have to follow road signs and landmarks to know where I am. One time while we were hitting garage sales my Mom watched as I repeatedly tried to drive my way out of a maze of dead-end cul-de-sacs.

"Head for the mountains!" she wisely advised. I found the mountains and kept them in front of me which stopped me from going in circles in that goofy subdivision! Sounds funny but it's not funny when I find myself lost in a new place, especially when I am alone.

I don't plan to do much any lone sight-seeing on the trip we will be leaving on soon. I don't want to get lost in places that have no mountains. I will have no idea which way to turn to get re-oriented.

I read around online about magnetic fields trying to find out if there is such an ailment as -lostness- due to a deficiency of iron in the skull bone. I ran across a study by Kyoichi Nakagawa, M.D. claiming that since the Earth has lost 50% of it's magnetic field in the last 500 years people are suffering the effects of it by different bodily sicknesses. You can read more of that article HERE. (For this specific quote read under: 2.Deficiency of the Magnetic Field acting on the human body.) My comment to this study is: "If our magnetic field has been diminishing how much more lost will I be?" That might explain the wandering around I do trying to get things done. No, I think that is another problem, called aging.

I never have found anything online yet about this. I'm not even sure what and if all of this magnetic north and iron stuff has anything to do with how easily I get lost, but I think I will pop an iron pill just in case it will help to keep me from wandering in circles while I am in a strange land.

Magnetic pole migration? So the magnetic north pole moves?