How can some birds find their way from New York to Chile while I can get lost three blocks from home? I’ve had trouble navigating all my life—missing exits on the freeway, getting lost on cross-country flights, even walking out of a downtown store and turning north instead of south. What’s up? Am I just not paying attention?

Take driving. We have just visited Amish friends near the tiny town of Canton, Minnesota and are driving home, inhaling the smell of our sweet, Amish-baked bread. We’re on the proper road—US 52—but nothing looks familiar. Then Barbara points out the Iowa highway signs. We’re headed south instead of north.

I have driven multiple times to our friends’ house in Roseville. But today I’m not sure: do I take Rice Street or Lexington? What’s the street you turn off on? They’re on the corner of—which streets? Embarrassing to use a GPS to navigate to a friend’s house you’ve visited so many times.

I feel like a failure when I resort to using “Penelope,” our GPS. If Penelope speaks with a beautiful British accent sitting in London, how can she know about the secondary streets in Minneapolis-St. Paul, say nothing about traffic backups and construction zones? She dazzles in her directions but in rare cases she leads us down rabbit trails. One time Penelope points us a different direction than the way I pretty much know. Furthermore, my wife-navigator insists we’ve already gone beyond our destination. I do not sleep with Penelope so I defer to my wife, do a U-turn, and get lost. Penelope gets ticked and goes silent.

And walking. I have frustrating dreams about walking at night lost in the rain. Or I’m walking in a vast city and recognize no landmarks. Or I’m late heading to teach my college class but have forgotten my pants, or my notes, or haven’t prepared anything. Forgotten where the classroom is. Even forgotten where the bathrooms are.

Have you ever been on foot in a large city, crossed the street to enter a store and walked up a couple stories? Then you come down, exit onto the busy sidewalk and walk away in the wrong direction. Anybody? Anybody? I’ve done that multiple times.

I always go to the same ENT doctor. But each time I have to verify: is it the office building near Unity hospital or the one near Mercy? Which floor? The nurse leads me through a labyrinth of antiseptic-smelling hallways to a consultation room. But when I leave she needs to hold my moist hand to get me back to the lobby. Then when I walk out I’m forced to use the panic button on my smart key to find my honking car.

At our apartment in Oak Crest we must navigate a football-field-sized building stretching 50 yards down each wing. Today I walk down the fresh-scented hallway and burst unannounced into Larry and Julie’s apartment. “Hi, Larry and Julie! No, nothing; just dropping by.” Their door is the last door on the right in the east wing. My apartment door is the last door on the right in the west wing. Not only have I done this three times but I don’t know why and don’t know how to avoid it next time.

Even flying small planes. It’s 1965 and I’m flying a twin-engine Cessna 310 from Amarillo to Kansas City. I don’t have instrument charts so I’m forced to fly visual below a rainy cloud layer. I’m too low to receive navigation signals so I follow the compass, aiming far ahead, trying to correct for wind drift. Roads, rivers, railroad lines, small towns and fields flash by so fast and close I can almost smell the corn but I can’t identify anything with certainty. Finally I circle a water tower to read the name of the town and identify it on my chart.

It’s 1970 and I’m flying in Venezuela with an airplane full of missionary kids. They’re screaming as we fly through dark, lightning-filled clouds. I smell sour milk. Suddenly we burst out over the Orinoco river—second only in size to the Amazon. But I’m not sure if my destination is upriver or downriver and I’m low on fuel, flying over the broccoli of the vast jungle where airstrips are spaced out an hour or two apart. I let down to 100 feet and turn upriver, flying through the painful air, peering through a bleary windshield with the river racing backwards under our wings. We finally spot the grass airstrip.

More recently Jeremy and I are flying to Princeton, Minnesota, only fifteen minutes north. We will park there and walk over to the Hi-Way Inn for breakfast. (It’s a “$100 breakfast” if you include cost of the plane rental.) The restaurant lies on US 169, a major highway; can’t miss it. But we fly right past Princeton and have to circle back. I caution Jeremy—“Don’t tell your mom.”

Another anxious dream. I’m flying at high speed along city streets below the building tops. Or I have landed and am taxiing through a grove of pine trees on a rainy night, the propeller throwing up mud onto the windshield. But I’ve forgotten the way to taxi back to the airport.

So what’s going on? Years ago I failed only one portion of my flight program—navigation. I’ve worked really hard but have no evidence I’ve made much improvement so I pay extra attention and do a lot of crosschecking when I fly cross-country. Am I fated to fail? Or will I find some golden key that will perfect my navigational skills? I doubt it..

So when my wife asks me, “Do you know where we’re going?” I just say, “No, but I figure if I get in the general area we can drive around honking until someone finds us and tells us where to go.” She rolls her eyes and then stares straight ahead, mute.