QUESTION:
As a low vision person, how do you know which way you’re traveling in terms of north, south, east, and west?  This may be a personal subject so I apologize if it offends you.

Thank you,

Karen

ANSWER:
This is a very good question, Karen, and I assure you I am not offended.  In fact, I wish more people would make such inquiries.  

As I think about this subject, I remember feeling so very stupid when I was a little boy because I could not figure out how my uncles understood it when someone told them to travel east for three miles, then, turn south.

To me it seemed like some special magic code that only the very special, or at least the very sighted, could decipher. 

Once, I must have been around 8 years old or so, I asked one of my cousins, who must have been about 14, to explain it to me.  To make a long story longer, let’s just say that he was quite unsuccessful in making me understand the extremely complex principles involved in learning how to circumnavigate our backyard. 

At the age of 12, I asked one of my uncles to teach me how to determine north.  I don’t remember how our conversation went but I do remember that whatever I learned that day, I quickly forgot, that exact same night (Smile).

Well, when I was 15 years old, for whatever reason, I got it into my head that I would teach myself to understand north, south, east, and west.  I will not bore you with the boring details but let me say that my first step was to focus on the setting sun and it’s position to our dining room door.  The second step was to, no matter where I physically stood, in my mind, orient myself to that dining room door.  As long as I could do that, I would always know which direction was west. 

You may think that I made the learning process more difficult than it needed to be but, as a southpaw, (left-handed in a right-handed world), growing up in the middle of the country (no ocean), it was the only way I could begin to fathom the four fathoms. 

The third and final set, in learning compass directions, was to simply memorize in which direction, from west, is north.

Look at that, I guess I told you the entire process after all (Smile). 

But I digress; to continue with my answer:

I can navigate in any direction because I know where the sun should be, at any
given point in time.  On days when it’s cloudy, however, I simply have
to remember the directions of various streets.  At night, of course,
there is no sun with which to navigate.  You guessed it, I get lost a lot at night (Big Smile).

Simply put, in the morning, the sun is in the east.  Therefore,
turning so that the sun is on my right, I know that walking forward is going north.
Now that I know which way east and north are, I automatically know
which way west and south are because they are the reverse of north and east.

I use the same system, in reverse, in the afternoon.

That is, in the afternoon, the sun is in the west.  Therefore,
turning so that the sun is on my left, I know that walking forward is
going north.  Now that I know which way west and north are, I
automatically know which way east and south are because they are the reverse of north and west.

By the way, I don’t like navigating at noon when the
sun is directly overhead.  Yep!  I get lost a lot at noon, too.

Oh!  One more thing:  The above technique was completely useless when I lived in Australia; you know, that little continent on the other side of the planet?

Take care and thanks for asking.

Mark