When I was young — fourth grade is my best estimation — we took a field trip to a nature preserve of some kind. I don’t remember the bus ride, but I do remember that when I got there, it seemed to me we must have thousands of miles from anywhere. I thought I would be afraid, but instead I felt free. I was a latch-key kid, even then; I had grown accustomed to relying on myself. Granted, there were chaperones everywhere, but it felt a grand adventure.

Ostensibly, we were there to learn about nature and grasslands and whatever else you teach a fourth grader but the part of the trip that stands out in my mind was the little game they had us play. If you don’t know me well, it may surprise you that I was an insufferable nerd right up until around my freshman year in high school. Straight A’s, loner reading in the corner, video games in the summer, doing math for fun, acne and too much body fat… the whole shot. I learned to read when I was three because I wanted to be smart more than anything. Not too much has changed, but I have learned to be social, at least.

So, when the tour guide suggested a game where each student was going on a little treasure hunt, my ears perked up. We were given a map and a compass and told we were going to be “orienteering” to find our way to each step to the treasure. Needless to say, I was first to the treasure by about ten minutes, already looking for another challenge.

And I felt good about myself. I felt like I had triumphed.

No doubt much of this is washed in nostalgia and precocious childhood perspective, but I can’t say when I have since felt so strongly that the world was my oyster. That I had possibilities everywhere but driving direction.

Later in my life, when I was an apathetic teenager, my father would try to teach me how to orienteer in the wilderness without compass or map, but I paid little attention. One lesson did stick, though. Find your direction, orient on the sun and then head that direction without swerving. I managed well enough to find the truck when deer hunting.

I wonder here aloud (a-typed?) whether that sort of point-and-go attitude could get one through life. Worked for Teddy Roosevelt, right?

I was not cast in Noises Off! and now I’m not really sure what to do with myself. I had plans for very specific workshops this year, but I am second guessing in the afterglow of an unsuccessful audition. Not being cast was disappointing, of course, and there are other things where I might be a shoo-in. I think instead I will focus on personal growth outside of a show. Fitness, education, and simple meditation.

But I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow. What can I say? For me, the horizon is a moving target.