Orientation

Bullocks Cove, from the causeway, December 2006

Is it that growing up on a peninsula gives you a permanent orientation which others lack, or is it the End of Nature, ala Bill McKibben? When I assign boys tasks in our daily job period, and one's is to "vacuum south side and bring in newspaper," he always asks "Where's the 'south side'?" And I react snappishly, where is the sun in the afternoon? which way is warm?, and they just gape. I think, they should know which way is south. But of course they don't, and shouldn't because they are adolescents roused too early from their sleep. It's a wonder that they can comply as well as they do. In the ideal world, they would sleep till they woke AND they would always know which way was north, south, east, west because they would have the time and leisure to observe the natural world which still envelops and hosts our artificial one.