Just go

What was I doing?, I wondered, following the two-track around a curve and into the woods of Montmorency County.

What was I doing, indeed. I’d driven to Northeast Michigan a week earlier to research something bad that happened there a few years back, something with roots that spread deeper and wider than most kindly Up North folks want to know.

I’d dug through court documents and knocked on doors and prodded for secrets. The more I learned, the more I was convinced that I needed to keep looking, keep asking questions.

Firm conviction or no, I marveled at my own ridiculousness as I bumped along the two-track I’d followed on a whim because I recognized the road’s name from a note I’d seen in a court document ― a note that connected the road to a theft, and to black-market guns, and to violent biker gangs, and to a small-town murder.

The road went and went, nowhere upon nowhere. No homes, no buildings, not even a deer blind ― just the two-track, relentlessly crawling deeper into the trees. I thought about the stories I'd seen about DNR officers having to rescue people lost in the dense Montmorency County woods with no GPS Service. I glanced at my phone. No signal, it said.

Time to get out of there. I wheeled around awkwardly at a slight widening of the road and trumbled back the way I came. Moments later, I hit the brakes, confused. I would have sworn the road was a single, unbroken line. Yet, in front of me, the two-track split in two directions. 

And I didn’t know which way to go.

A moment of panic set in. I wasn’t lost, oh, no. I knew very well where I was ― in the middle of the woods, directionless, with no way to ask for help and no chance anyone would pass my way and find me, except maybe someone up to no good. I felt frozen, afraid of going the wrong way, afraid of making things worse.

But, I reassured myself, I had wheels. And I had the two-track. I just needed to keep my wits about me and keep going.

I breathed deep and picked a path.

Yyyeah, no. Definitely not the one. I retreated to the intersection and tried again.

The other path didn’t look right, either, but it was the only option left. Rocks jolted my tires as I climbed a hill I didn't recognize, my car rattling fiercely.

This was wrong. I had to go back. But I couldn’t turn around. Tight-growing trees and prickly shrubs and loose, tractionless sand on the path’s edge forbade it.

“Well, Riddle, you’ve bungled this one,” I scolded myself, pretending I wasn’t worried. Seeing no alternative, I threw my right arm over the back of my seat, twisted my head over my shoulder, and set off, backward, down the hill.

I hope God doesn’t mind prayers mixed with swear words, because that’s what He got as I tumbled backward down the hill, picking up speed and dodging trees and bounced by rocks and afraid to hit the brakes as my tires wrenched sideways in the sandy shoulders of the road.

Sliding at last to a stop back at the fork in the road, I sat silent for a moment, stunned. Heck of an adventure this was turning out to be. Another deep breath, another heaven-flung prayer, and then I turned my car’s nose back toward the first road.

It was the right one, after all. Down a muddy hill and up a sandy one, around the big bend, and I was back onto the main road, grateful as I’d ever been to feel pavement under my tires.

Looked at now, from the safe distance of a week or two’s time, it wasn't much of an escapade, really. A silly girl takes a back road into the woods, gets a little turned around, and makes it out just fine.

But feeling lost in the woods can be scary.

So many of our life’s challenges, on paper, seem inconsequential. We hit this wall, we encounter that obstacle, and, in the end, we’re fine. There was never, we see in retrospect, any real danger, any real need for our hearts to flutter in a panic.

In the midst of it, though ― when we don’t know which path to take, when we feel life’s circumstances careening out of our control ― in the moment, we may bury our heads in despair, certain we are hopelessly lost.

Perhaps, in those moments, the trick is to throw up a fervent prayer, pick a direction, and just…keep going.

I visited Northeast Michigan because I’m writing a book. It’s about a set of violent crimes in Alpena two years ago. And it’s about the forces that shaped the people involved, forces that still very much exist, endangering our communities, our homes, our kids.

It’s going to require incredibly hard work, focus, and commitment. It’s going to mean knocking on some scary doors and occasionally getting lost in the woods.

It scares me to pieces.

But I believe in the work. I believe it will help people. And when I discover I’ve followed the wrong path and gotten myself into a scrape, well then, I can grip the wheel, back up, and start over.

A thick, gritty, baseball-sized rock now sits on the desk where I do my writing. I found it at the intersection in the woods, that spot where I had to decide whether to just sit there and worry or give it my best shot.

I want to remember that moment. As I plow through my new, big project ― and as I tackle the challenges each day brings ― I want to think back to that scary place and remember that, despite some false starts, I made it out OK.

There’s an other side. What’s bad will get better.

Sometimes you've just gotta pick a direction and go.

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Hey, before you go...can I ask a favor?

I miss writing the monthly Everyday Faith column that used to appear in The Alpena News and that I also posted on this blog, mostly so that my mother-in-law could read it. I want to get back to that kind of writing and start adding new posts, sometimes about God stuff, sometimes just about life.

I also know I'm not great at follow-through if I don't have accountability. I need to make a commitment to someone who can see whether I post regularly or not. If you'd like to help me by being a human on the other end of that commitment -- or if you'd like some new and, maybe, interesting reading content once or twice a month -- sign up for an email alert in the white box at the bottom of this page. I will send you a quick note when I post something new and will not use your address for anything else without your permission. I'm a regular person, just like you, and I hate spam as much as you do.

You're also welcome to share a link to this blog with someone else you think might like to read it.

Thanks. And, if you find yourself sorta stuck today, worried and not sure what to do, just pick a direction and go. You're smarter than you think, and you'll get it figured out. I believe in you.

..........

Hang on, update: Apparently, if you're looking at this on your phone, you can't see the email sign-up thingy unless you select "View web version." You can do that, if you want. Or not. Either way, thanks for reading. I enjoyed writing this for you.