A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Solnit describes falling in love with a hermit who lived in the desert. Her love for him is intrinsically linked to her love for the landscape. When she first visited him in the Mojave Desert in late spring, while talking into the dark hours of night, she was arrested by a kangaroo mouse tunneling at her feet. She felt a sense of solitude when she was with this man who was surrounded by only animals. On their second date, the man told her a story about rescuing a rattlesnake from the cold and moving it to his garage. She was struck by his kindness toward a creature that was normally treated with animosity. She recalls thinking about the snake a few days later while walking up the trail. As soon as she thought the word “snake,” she looked down and saw a small rattlesnake at her feet.

This was not the first time such a phenomenon had occurred. Solnit remembers thinking about two arrowheads—one that she discovered and one that was given to her. As soon as she thought of this gifted arrowhead, its twin appeared at her feet, 2,000 miles away from where the first was discovered.

Solnit’s relationship came to an end. She asserts that there is no story to tell. When relationships end, they move from a singular story to many, fragmented narratives: “The stories shatter. Or you wear them out or leave them behind. Over time, the story or the memory loses its power. Over time you become someone else” (134). What remained for Solnit was her connection to the landscape and the animals that inhabited it. When she settled into a small house in the desert to write, she noticed the tiny creatures that lived alongside her: Walking sticks, paper wasps, Mexican grasshoppers, and lizards.

In the fall, she returned to San Francisco. She compares her return to Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo, which is considered a love letter to the city. She thinks about the hermit crab which ultimately outgrows its shell and must find another. This risky time is one of transformation and uncertainty.

Solnit closes the chapter with the story of Tiresias, who was blinded by Hera. Tiresias’s story began when he saw two snakes making love and struck them; he was turned into a woman. Seven years later, he came across the same sight and committed the same act, returning to a man. The gods asked him to settle a bet about whether men or women have more pleasure during sex. Tiresias claimed women derived more pleasure and was punished by Hera, but Zeus compensated him by giving him the ability to see into the future. Solnit claims that Tiresias’s story is one that is tied to its landscape and that the word “romance” was originally used to describe a journey of seeking.