Get Lost

From dressing up like a turkey on Thanksgiving to reading haughty French sonnets on Bastille Day, we all have little tricks to best celebrate our favorite holidays. Like explaining to hyperactive children on an Easter egg hunt who Rabbit Maranville was and why we ought to remember him today – especially today. They are our own ways of making life easier. Traditions handed down from parents to children and from children to ground squirrels.  

 

Columbus Day, for obvious reasons, is obviously different. It’s a day that no one is quite sure how to properly celebrate. Should we honor the man with a plate of Genoa salami or salute his films? Should we curse him for his numerous atrocities or tear down his statues? It’s an open question, of course. To honor Columbus, I get in my car and just drive. Where to? I don’t know I never know. It’s hardly the point. Maybe China. Maybe the Caribbean. Either way, I’m emulating the great man with a confused route that will take me somewhere I don’t really know 

Columbus gives hope to anyone incapable or reading a map. But it’s not simply the mistake that set the Admiral apart from other bewildered sailors of the time. His makeup was significantly different. You’ve missed your exit before or turned down the wrong street. But what you felt– because you’re a normal person – was shame and humiliation. You bowed your head in disgrace, slowly backing out of a stranger’s driveway, praying to the lord above that they don’t notice you. Is stupidity a defense against trespassing? 

Mistakes happen on the road. You’re following signs that disappear or the weather gets too rough to read. The difference is that you know you’re in the wrong. You pull over onto the shoulder and call a close friend, explaining why you’re going to be late to their punctual religious ceremony. When attending a bris, it’s important to be mindful of time – a surprise party it is not. No one wants an unexpected knock at the door right at the moment of truth.  

But that’s you. And you’re not Columbus. Because if you were, you’d stay parked in that stranger’s driveway, convinced you were at the right house, going to your grave that everyone else was wrong. Just not you. Then you’d go back the next year and the year after that. When each time a man who you’d never met before would answer the door. You’d say, “Hello, Dante.” “My name’s not Dante, it’s Jason. And who are you?” “Sure it is, Dante [winking] You were such a kidder in college. So when’s the bris?” Without belaboring the finer points of circumcision, this exchange would play out for years, leaving you unmoved and unconvinced of your error. A dog would run up to you, licking your face and you’d tell the man, “your cat is quite rambunctious. What a lovely feline.” You’d do this sort of thing again and again, year after year. Why reflect when you’re right? People would follow you and some might even defend you. It’s one thing to get lost. It’s quite another to never admit it. 

So that’s how I celebrate Columbus Day. With a few wrong turns and a good amount of denial. It seems only fitting. Happy trails.