“Regular
maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and
are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make
ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our
private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat
behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was
heartsore; but felt better round the corner once I saw the hills of Fife across
the Forth, things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private
tapestry of our lives.”
- - Alexander
McCall Smith, Love Over Scotland
I had
wanted to make a map of my neighborhood. And then I stumbled across the quote
above. I realized that it would be fairly easy to make a map of my
surroundings. I could include the trails that I like to wander, my
favourite coffee place where I like to
stop and write and sip cappuccinos. Even a notation where the five streams that
run under my neighborhood streets meet.
But to
include all the places where I have felt ‘place’, where I have lost myself or
found myself, where the now busy streets depress me, or the landscape lifts me.
Well, there would have been so many layers as to make the map unreadable, and
the stories would be lost.
So I won’t
make a map, a thing of roads and directions and destinations. Instead, I will
tell stories that will create ‘place’ in and of themselves.
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