All the streets in the lower 48 states by fathom.com/info/allstreets
As Valentine's Day lingers in the still-near imagination, I still see the color red permeating everything and everywhere around, if not in every single "clearance" aisle of any store far and wide. Red is power, red is love, red is fire, red is blood. A few days ago a blood vessel broke in my finger. The sensation was immediate and intense, and what troubled me was that I had no clue how I did it. No trauma that I could recall, just lifted it from the dishwater to see it swelling like a balloon in the middle between the joints and purple as can be. For a moment I thought I might lose my finger. So, so strange. It's fine now, the swelling subsided, the bruising spreading and then diminished. Vessels, arteries, the movement of blood and life.
And again, because of my recent travel and following the amazing blogs of Christopher O'Brien and Cheong Kim as their family travels the world this year, I'm drawn to the metaphor of arteries as paths within our journeys. I'm sure I've written before of one of our favorite children's books, Subway by Christoph Neimann. It's a simple book and a simple story. A father takes his sons for "a trip on the subway just for fun." They travel all the rail routes throughout the New York boroughs. The book follows the lines and points from "Jamaica Bay to far Rockaway." It's a great book, and it's a clear reminder of the days when holding a map — even a subway map — felt familiar, or going from place to place could truly be a surprise. No longer. Our beloved Google maps and other GPS systems keep us on the beaten path for better or worse... unless, like us, you are traveling and don't update your telephone plan to an international data plan. In India we found ourselves doing the proverbial "ask him" from every rickshaw wallah along the way, even in, perhaps, the most obvious of places. Every few moments we pulled to the side and asked "bhaiyyah" (brother) after bhaiyyah where a certain road, shop, even the newly opened Starbucks was located. And every time what followed was a simple point down the road... a point to the next person, perhaps, who might get us that much closer to our final destination. The boys found it humorous. I found it exasperating, but more than that, it felt so odd to be relying once again on others as we traveled along each path. Attempting to find a close friend's clothing factory, we got so lost we eventually had to have someone come to us and show us the way. A rare moment in time. Hardly anyone needs to follow another anymore.
After graduating from college, I took a year between college and graduate studies to work in my hometown. Going out for drinks one night I met a woman who was working as a cartographer. I was deeply fascinated. How does one become a maker of maps, I asked? I've forgotten now what she said. Perhaps she studied geography or engineering. Perhaps she had always valued details and perfection. Perhaps she had an art or literature degree and had wanted to explore the possibilities of boundaries in a real and concrete way. I can't remember now. This was 1993 or 1994, and I can't even begin to understand how drastically that field has changed in the last 20 years. We still carry dozens of maps in the side compartment of our car, maps that are rarely opened or handled. And what's more, we still collect them... on a trip to Wisconsin cheese country or the Smoky Mountains. Maps are more than their content; they are proof of the journey or the experience, needed or not.
I wrote earlier about Nooa's cultural fair. Almost every child's board had a hand drawn map on it, with the evident struggles of lines and borders for all those little hands. In preparing for that fair, we referenced another favorite book in our collection: Maps, by Aleksandra Mizielinska. Another "lavishly" illustrated book (as the description says and I heartily agree) that captures country, region, culture, border in each and every page, creating a context to each place and space. I'm amazed how much the idea of a map holds in a child's imagination. Ettu used to draw elaborate treasure maps that he would give to me, Nalin, or his brother to follow and find. It occurs to me quite often that maps not only should but must be a part of their explorations and learning. Like other things, a physical map feels like a dying thing, but put it in a child's hands and it becomes as alive as the arteries it represents.
We have a print hanging in our hall depicting a map of the United States with every street drawn in pen. Every street. If you look at it from a not-so-far distance the map looks black, except for maybe the plains or some areas in farm country or the great northwest. Every artery showcased, yet practically invisible due to the massive quantity of them. And I imagine that's what our lives end up looking like... every path we've ever taken blurring together until indiscernible. Making it altogether that much more important that we record and reflect. And that's my Valentine's wish for you: to love and learn and live as if every vessel in your body depended on it... 'cause it does.