Lost and Found

It’s eight fifteen on a Tuesday night, and I am lost in the darkness.

It may sound dramatic, but bear with me.

I am staring at the billowing smoke coming out of a steel mill’s towering chimneys, and I know where I am. I can see it on the map, and I have followed exactly the road I wanted to get here. I just don’t know how to proceed from here.

Three weeks ago, I joined the wind orchestra of the steel company. For the first rehearsals, the conductor picked me up from the tram stop and drove me through the factory gates, but tonight he started with the brasses two hours ago. The woodwinds begin in fifteen minutes, and I cannot for the life of me find the correct entrance gate. Or any gate, for that matter. I thought that if I followed the road from the tram stop, I would remember it, but three weeks ago was late summer and sunny and much earlier; now it's dark and cold, and everything feels farther away on a bike. I cannot gauge distances properly, and I don’t recognise the crossing I am stuck at.

The fact that I am monstrously tired is not helping. It has been a long, stressful day, which came after a long, stressful week. I would not have gotten out of my house for anything else, but the band is special. True, I don’t know this band much; it’s only been three weeks. But the memory of how I felt when I sat down at the first rehearsal keeps me going. Bands are open, bands are welcoming, bands are home. It did not matter that I was 700 kilometres from my native town, surrounded by strangers, struggling with the language. The feeling was the same as it had been fifteen years ago in another room filled with stands and chairs and people who would never look at each other a second time in the street, but for some mysterious reason find themselves playing together in that moment, and who accept the presence of an awkward Italian woman without a thought. When I sat, I knew where I was.

Unlike right now. I rub my eyes. They feel scratchy behind the eyelids. I have been going back and forth on this stretch of road, trying to recognise something, anything, without luck. I am so tired that I am on the verge of tears. I want to text the conductor saying that I’m lost, but what can he do? I am at the factory, I just don’t know where to enter from. There are no street numbers around a giant factory. It’s like a tiny city in the city. I steel myself against these thoughts. It’s my last rehearsal before I start teaching on Tuesday nights, and I won’t miss it. I just won’t.

A pair of headlights blinds me briefly, taking me out of my reverie. I glimpse an old man behind the wheel.

Wait.

We are at a steel mill on a random Tuesday night. Where could this old man be going, if not to the band?

This is insane. He could be going anywhere. I cannot follow a car.

Suddenly, I turn the bike and start pedalling like my life depends on it. What’s the worst that can happen? I already don’t know where to go. If the old man is not going to the band rehearsal, I will simply not know where to go from a different place. I pedal and pedal. The sweat makes my undershirt stick to my back, and I curse the too-heavy jumper I wore on top of it. The clarinet case straps dig into my shoulders, and I am almost sure that this was a terrible idea until I recognise the street again! That’s the roundabout, and that’s the gate.

When I finally park my bike beside the door and take the stairs, I cannot quite believe it. I’m sweaty and breathless, my hair sticks uncomfortably to my forehead, and I know I look disgusting. But when I arrive in the hallway, the first clarinet is there, and she asks about my concert last week. A few minutes later, she calls me and shows me a clarinet meme, and we all laugh at the silly picture of a popsicle stick used as a reed. They know my name, they smile, one man asks me if I got my ID card, one introduces me to another clarinettist, the first flute greets me enthusiastically.

I know where I am.