Maps

September 11, 2017

Greetings from the cartographer,

You could get them at gas stations.  There would be a wire rack near the door, next to a display of pine scented air fresheners, maybe a display of motor oil.  There would be folders with local attractions in the wire rack, and sometimes brochures from local businesses like campgrounds or diners. 

But the reason for the wire racks, and the reason I would be in a gas station, was the maps. 

You could get them at state parks, and tourist information centers, at welcome centers just inside a state border.  In small towns you could find them in libraries and at the police station.

They were free. Whenever I saw them I would look to see if there was one I needed.  If not I left them for the next traveler. 

These days most people have little use for maps, and I am not sure where you would go to find them.  Well, there’s one place I’m sure of.  In my basement, in a box of things I could not bear to throw away.

The maps were originally folded in a method meant to confound anyone who unfolded them.  This didn’t distract me since I folded them the way I wanted: so I could see where I was that day.

Some of them are still crisp, the color still vivid, the name of the state bold on the front. 

But most are soft from use, thin from being folded and refolded.  The paper has been in relationship with my hands, changed by the sweat, worked into a new texture from the warmth.  Creased into a new shape by the places I visited.

As I travelled around the country on my bicycle I would find my way by these maps.  They became companions to me.  Folded in my back pocket or on the handlebar bag in front of me, grey lines and red dots and grids and numbers that guided me from unknown to known.

The maps would sometimes have a little state history in the margins.  Perhaps the state bird, or a picture of the current governor.  There would be a legend that explained the different colored lines; which were unpaved roads or bituminous, or limited access highways or state roads.  There was an explanation of the symbols so I could see where there were train tracks and parks and rest areas.  I could see enough to know there were bridges, fields, low places.  In the broad prairie states the lines were mile squares, and I knew there would be trees planted as windbreaks. 

It was how I would find a place to sleep at night.

And sometimes they were wrong.  There is no town in this stretch of Nevada desert.  This road is not paved and the bridge here was taken down.  It was rare and so I trusted the map like a friend who is not perfect but still a friend.

I learned which roads would have the most traffic between towns.  I learned that a serpentine line probably was winding through hilly terrain, and that a river crossing meant a downhill glide.  I could usually tell from the size of the town on a map if there would be more maps there.

At the end of each day I would run my finger along the lines I had travelled and add up the little red numbers that shared the miles between towns.  I would take out a pen and trace my path, making my own line among the lines, charting how to get from there to here.  I would put a small hash across the road where I was stopped and write the mileage there.  I was here.

On picnic tables and under bridges, in my tent, rain drumming the roof.  At formica topped diner tables and in farmer’s kitchens and grassy places and greasy garages.  I unfolded my map and found where I was and where I wanted to go and changed the map and it changed me.

Maps are a romantic thing.  They have promise and mystery, and for most of history people have clung to maps to know how to get across the world.  Behind the map are untold number of people who made them possible, by first exploring and marking and then writing them out for me and you.  They are reassuring; someone has been here before and left this trail to show you where to go.

And they are quickly becoming a thing of nostalgia, of other eras.  Not the information, we still need to navigate.  But the tactile, tangible interaction between the map and the lost.  It’s not an absolutely necessary thing, but it is an element that makes getting there a richer experience.   Trust me.

The paper that is stained with my sweat, my tears, rain from four decades ago.  Tattooed with scribbled notes in the margins, some sections torn off to help start a fire.  And on the faded grey lines between the towns and people that made up my days, a blue ballpoint mark that held how I got there.  You only get that from a map.

Before I would set out on an adventure I would unfold a map.  I would look at places I wanted to go and see that there was a way to get there.  It allowed me to go, urged me to.  Each map held courage and history and potential.  The maps were partners in each beginning, they brought me to every place I sought and home again.

Hope this finds you exploring,

David

Copyright © 2017 David Smith