'If I Were You I Would Not Start From Here.... '

One of the phrases that was quaint,
nearly funny, in the town I grew up in
happened when a stranger asked a local

The local would reply with their hands
pointing left and right into the distance
telling the stranger which way they should go
without saying the street names of the places
they will have to pass through which their guide
preferred to avoid thinking about as if
they were lost in the stream of local consiousness.

At some point the guide would yield to their usual habit,
and stun the stranger using the phrase 'If I were you
I would not start from here, to get to where you seek. 
I would start from somewhere else.'.

I eventually felt lost in the town
that gave the people who lived there
that rather circular sense of direction
that led nowhere else. I found my way out.

I have not looked back since, 
whether I was lost, had mixed directions,
or was travelling using dead reckoning,
pure guesss work to get to where I thought
I was meant to be going to, I got there in the end. 

Anid in the end found the place I never found
when I had to ask for directions for it: the place
I can call home where whether I am active or inactive
I can rest and I can give myself clearer directions.