The Familiar and The Strange — To whoever is not listening to the sea

Curt is a big believer in learning from the experience of others. He spent months before we left finding other travelers on social media, reading books written by travelers, looking at their pictures. (He still does this all the time!) Most of what he learned has been about places to go, or not to go, or crazy things you can do to, or with, your Vanagon (#Vanlife!) But one thing he learned really stood out. A man who was traveling with his family through Africa, in a Vanagon, warned: "You will need to get used to feeling disoriented most of the time."

This struck us as something to be aware of, but not something we could prepare for. We were right. We have noticed that when we get a new destination, there is always an initial wariness as we try to figure out 'the deal' with the place. Familiar things feel safe, and unfamiliar things unsafe, even though we really have no idea if either sentiment is accurate.

For instance, when we first landed in Yucca Valley, we spent a few weeks trying to figure out if we lived in a good neighborhood, a bad neighborhood, or just somewhere in between. The landscape in the desert was, and is still, unfamiliar. It's not lush or manicured; it's dirty and wild. In Yucca, everyone around us had a chainlink fence around their entire yard and dogs...lots of dogs. We lived nearby an independent coffee shop, antique stores and trendy shops...but we were equidistant to several liquor stores and abandoned homes. Which do you pay more attention to? Why? What do you miss out on by being too cautious and sticking with the familiar? What do you risk by going too far into the strange?

Last Sunday there was a terrific article in The New York Times Magazine about wave pilots in the Marshal Islands, who navigate at sea with no instruments. It's a great read — so well written! — and also a fascinating subject. Reading it made got us thinking again about this notion of disorientation. Particularly the discussion of how we navigate, how it impacts our the brains, our relationships and our outlook on the world. From the article:

"Disorientation is always stressful, and before modern civilization, it was often a death sentence. Sometimes it still is...[However}, being lost — assuming, of course, that you are eventually found — has one obvious benefit: the chance to learn about the wider world and reframe your perspective. From that standpoint, the greatest threat posed by GPS might be that we never do not know exactly where we are."

"Tolman [who found that rats develop cognitive maps of mazes when they navigate through them] hypothesized that humans have cognitive maps, too, and that they are not just spatial but social. ‘‘Broad cognitive maps,’’ he posited, lead to empathy, while narrow ones lead to ‘‘dangerous hates of outsiders,’’ ranging from ‘‘discrimination against minorities to world conflagrations.’’

We figured out in both Yucca and Tucson that we are staying in normal neighborhoods. They aren't fancy, there is a little roughness, but they are fine. In both cases, it took some time, a willingness to wander around (we get lost a lot), and a bit of discomfort to figure that out. We've decided it's worth it.