Village Raw - ISSUE 9

ESSAY
A FEW REFLECTIONS
ON BEING LOST
Words by Miki Lentin.
Illustration by Lobster and Pearls.
I moved to London in 1996. I was excited, numb, confused
by the enormity of it all. There was a tube strike and London
boiled in a heatwave. The bus became my friend. Countless
changes, endless stops, seats upstairs, downstairs, a cord
to ring the bell - but with every day came a new perspective.
Over the last 20 years my London homes have varied.
As I moved from place to place and entered employment it
was important to know how to get from home to work, work
to home, home to gym and home again. It was easy – I rarely
ventured off the beaten track. The thought of anything
disturbing that routine raised anxiety - I wasn’t one to deviate.
If I did, I might find a part of me I didn’t want to find.
I’ve travelled the world extensively, often alone for days
on end in far flung lands - Mexico, China, Kazakhstan - with no
phone reception, without a care. I was sometimes reckless
but never afraid. And yet, whenever I came home I’d revert to
type. It made me question - what was I afraid of here? What
was the feeling about getting lost in foreign lands that disappeared
when I got home? Why didn’t I stop to look around?
Walter Benjamin, the German cultural critic and philosopher
wrote in his essay, A Berlin Chronicle (1932), that:
“not to find one’s way in a city may well be uninteresting
and banal. It requires ignorance - nothing more. But to
lose oneself in a city - as one loses oneself in a forest -
that calls for quite a different schooling.” Rebecca Solnit
quotes Benjamin in her book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost,
explaining: “to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully
present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.
And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the
implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender,
a psychic state achievable through geography.”
Solnit goes on to explain that the origin of the word
“lost” comes from the Old Norse los which means the disbanding
of an army - a truce, as she says, with the wide
world: “I worry now that many people never disband their
armies, never go beyond what they know.” I pondered what
truce I might be after and whether it was with myself or my
surroundings as I walked one morning to the Park Road Lido
for an icy early morning swim. I crossed Tottenham Lane,
walked down Elder Avenue and stopped - a concrete bollard
had been placed across the road. People stood with
clipboards monitoring something.
Elder Avenue had become an “avenue” once again. It
seemed wider - I could now follow its curve. My head wanted
me to wander aimlessly across the road but the muscles
in my legs held me teetering on the edge of the curb.
Could I cross? What was I waiting for? Approval, reassurance,
a flashing green person? A dog peed in the middle of
the crossroad. A cyclist rode down the centre of the road.
Two runners pounded the street. The clipboard officials
scribbled notes. “What’s going on?” I asked. “We’ve closed
the roads. It’s a two-week trial,” he said.
Over the coming days Middle Lane became my artery to
the rest of Crouch End. My eyes rose to the trees and lowered
to the detail of the Victorian carvings on manholes. I
heard the rush of water below, the chatter of people sipping
coffees, front doors opening and closing, rubbish bins
click-clacking on the pavement - there was even a street
party and the smell of curry wafted from somewhere at
night. For a brief period, I thought I was somewhere foreign
and it felt fine to be open to the uncertainty and directionless
pleasure of being lost in my own backyard.
Over time the air lifted. Things seemed clearer. I’d made
a short-term truce with the wide world and others followed
- some on foot or on bicycles, some with dogs or kids, some
alone. A trial separation had been agreed to see if a truce
could last. For a brief while there was no army. It had been
disbanded. It had surrendered to a beautiful, mysterious,
present “wide world”. •
The roads were closed in October 2019 as a part of Haringey Council’s £4.8m
Liveable Crouch End scheme that aims to encourage walking, cycling and the
use of public transport for residents, businesses and visitors, reducing car
journeys and improving health and air quality. For further information visit:
www.pclconsult.co.uk/liveablecrouchend
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