We were an hour from the ranch, in the nearly 22,000-acre Lubrecht Experimental Forest in Montana鈥檚 Blackfoot Valley, when I realized my horse and I were lost.

I spun in the saddle. The leather creaked as I eyed the trees around us, none of them distinct from the others. My first thought was of the mountain lion that had been lurking around these hills all winter and spring, and then of the wolf pack whose prints a neighbor had pointed out in the trail鈥檚 fresh mud. If Molly spooked and took off and I fell off way out here, I thought鈥�and then stopped myself. Focus.

Searching left and right for any sign of the path we took from the trail鈥攂roken branches? A hoofprint?鈥擨 scolded myself. I never went off the trail, and here it is, almost dusk, and we are lost.

鈥淲here鈥檚 the trail, Moll?鈥� I said out loud.

I鈥檇 been wooed by spring delights鈥攂irch saplings rich with new greens, the sighing pines swaying dozens of feet above them. It鈥檚 what one of my writing teachers called Montana鈥檚 鈥渂est season鈥濃�攖hese two perfect weeks when the mountains are snowcapped, the valleys are green, and the deciduous trees are electric with new life; nothing鈥檚 been scorched yet by summer heat, revealing this land as the desert it is.

Molly was a chestnut saddlebred, prone to shying and taking off at a gallop and pinning her ears and snapping at other horses. We were doing what we both loved most鈥攙enturing out on our own, up into the hills.

It may seem foolish for someone with a really, really bad sense of direction to adventure solo. But, ironically, these solo adventures that required more risk soothed my near-constant anxiety. When it was just Molly and me out in the woods, I didn鈥檛 have to concentrate on small talk or worry about what someone else needed or what I needed to get done for class. My first call after unpacking my boxes and settling in to start grad school in Missoula, Montana, was to this ranch, listed in the phone book on Hole in the Wall Road, half an hour east; I was determined to fulfill the dream I鈥檇 conjured as a New England kid of riding at a ranch out west. In the forest with Molly, it was just like my childhood days spent riding my neighbor鈥檚 horse along pine tree trails that emptied into a cornfield. I could focus on how her ears moved; how her long red mane snarled where my hands rested; the motion of her shoulders as she stepped forward in a walk, a trot, a canter, my body jouncing and then rocking. I could listen to her steps and breath and the woods and birds. I was centered, . I was so focused that even as I write this today, 15 years later and several states east, I can smell her sweat as she picked up to a canter and then a gallop; I can feel her coarse mane in my fingers; I can hear the wind up high in the pines. Molly and the ranch are still my home. I was happy there.

But that terrifying afternoon, I was lost. My heart raced as I tried to recall which direction we鈥檇 come from.

Getting lost is nothing new to me, but I try not to put myself in situations where I鈥檒l be really stranded. A few years before I moved to Montana and made the ranch my second home, taking riding lessons and working, I鈥檇 traveled solo and worked in Australia (paralegal, Chiquita banana sorter, waitress), tucking away my earnings to travel around Southeast Asia. I was terrified of getting lost while traveling alone, but that fear was outweighed by the far more daunting prospects of Real Life back home. (A career! Adulthood!) I got lost all the time at home, too. I still do to this day. I was once two hours late for a date in my home city because I鈥檇 gotten turned around. Just last week, leaving a playground I鈥檝e visited half a dozen times with my two-year-old son in Marquette, Michigan, where we鈥檝e lived for almost six years, I turned right out of the parking lot, sending myself on a 15-minute adventure to a dead-end, where I realized: I should鈥檝e turned left. I switched on my phone鈥檚 GPS, and the woman鈥檚 voice guided us the ten minutes home. 鈥淭here鈥檚 the lady,鈥� said my toddler from the back seat when he heard Siri direct us.

All of my adventures include U-turns, switchbacks, zigzags, and circles. The world doesn鈥檛 have an obvious order to me, as it seems to for so many others. Most people seem to innately know which way is north and can quickly in their landscapes. , creating , so-called , that guide them steadily on their desired course. My body wasn鈥檛 born with that ability. I almost never know which direction I鈥檓 facing, and when I try to picture maps of the places where I have lived, the map seems to spin, directionless, like a searching compass. Before GPS, on cross-country trips, I relied on a paper atlas to get me back on track, like the time I took a three-hour detour while driving from New York to Montana and found myself in West Virginia. Out in the woods, on hiking trails that curve and diverge into multiple choices without any signs鈥攁s I often find here in northern Michigan鈥擨 quickly lose my sense of direction. The trail is an entity of its own, lopped off from the rest of the world with its tidy north/south/east/west, spinning on an axis of trees and rocks, as I walk farther and farther from what I know. I鈥檝e since learned that many people with a condition that I have, called obsessive compulsive disorder, have a terrible sense of direction, or spatial awareness.

I was born in the 1970s. Dreamy, distracted, a worrier prone to losing everything (my homework, my backpack, my wallet). No one told me that I probably had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (yes), and that the thoughts and compulsions that tormented me were OCD, a treatable disorder, which likely affected my executive functioning and . Since I was diagnosed and began treatment in 2010, there have been studies that focus on (how we recall everything our brains store for us). It鈥檚 not that I鈥檓 not trying hard enough, not paying attention, or stupid. I just don鈥檛 have this skill; shows that we can improve our sense of direction, so maybe there鈥檚 hope for me yet. All this new information helps me continuously recast my understanding of myself. Back in the 1980s, when I was about ten and my OCD took hold, there was no internet to research my symptoms. I locked them away tight, keeping them secret for years and mastering ways to hide the obsessions and compulsions. I always thought I was a flake, incompetent, a failure. When the OCD got really bad in high school, I determined that I was a monster with no future, and that I鈥檇 live as long as I could until I went insane. All those solo adventures abroad and into the woods鈥攎y attempts to run away from the OCD鈥攆ueled my wonder at the world and helped keep me alive.

Thankfully, with my diagnosis and access to skilled treatment providers, I was given a second chance at life.

My lostness does drive some people crazy. Once, when a friend offered to help me carry a heavy load of books down to my car in a convention center garage, we circled and meandered rows of silent vehicles for half an hour, our arms aching, before he declared, 鈥淵ou know, you should tell people you have no sense of direction when they offer to help you!鈥�

I鈥檇 noted the aisle number before leaving, but I was in a rush and couldn鈥檛 remember it when we returned. Ever since, I鈥檝e written down the aisle and level at every garage, turning back to look at where my car is positioned next to a pole or corner.

Likewise, on a new trail, I memorize landmarks as I go. At forks and crossroads, I turn around鈥攏othing looks the same on return鈥攎aking note of a crooked tree, a chipmunk鈥檚 hole. I sear the image into my memory before moving on. I鈥檓 cautious, slowly edging my way into new landscapes. One day last fall, I drove an hour down a dirt road to a new-to-me unmarked trail and found it covered in yellow birch leaves, camouflaging it with the rest of the woods. I ventured out and scuffed my heels at every big turn, thinking of Hansel and Gretel. I鈥檝e considered whether these routines are OCD rituals that I do because I鈥檓 anxious, but I鈥檝e proven many times that getting lost is a likelihood, not an imagined fear.

I鈥檝e adapted. But the truth is that going slowly and even getting lost鈥攁t least on the not-life-threatening occasions鈥攎ake me pay attention differently. I study more closely the fallen trees and moss-covered stumps; I stop to smell summer wildflowers and listen to a bird call. In college, I used to love going for drives and getting lost on purpose, venturing into a landscape I hardly knew, awed by hollows covered in kudzu and rolling North Carolina back roads. This intense focus is probably what helps calm me.

Out in the darkening Montana mountains with Molly that day, we climbed and circled and descended as I edged toward panic.

Finally, as the wind picked up and dusk blotted out the leaves鈥� brilliance, I remembered what the ranch manager, Deb, had told me over and over all year, a truth I鈥檇 always known but forgotten in my fear: Horses always know the way home.

I took my feet out of the stirrups and let the reins rest loosely on Molly鈥檚 neck.

She paused, not sure what I wanted from her. Her ears spun back, listening. I kept my body still.

鈥淭ake us home, Moll,鈥� I said.

She turned, veering left, slowly and with certainty, reins swaying on her neck. My body relaxed again, shifting with hers, until, at last, there it was: that sweet dirt path back to the barn.

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