Finding our way

March 2021

I’ve been on a few road trips lately. A round trip from Florida to Michigan.  So today, I ponder maps. No, not those of the Google or Apple variety. Not on a device with a voice. Not a DNA or mind map. But those frustrating, complicatedly folded, intricate paper maps that were once the preferred method of guiding us from one place to another. 

Those objects that your parents argued over in the front seat of the car, whether how to refold them or how to read them.  All done while you snickered in the back seat with your siblings as your parents bickered, and the car slid dangerously over the centerline or precariously near the ditch. My mother bellowing, “For God’s sake, why can’t you just stop and ask someone!”  Ahh, the memories!

I have read that the first human writing was likely cartography. Drawings explaining where something was, so someone else could find it.  Or they could remember how to get there.  Historically, maps were often more art than functional geography. Amazing ancient examples still exist from our far distant past. Not necessarily accurate but beautiful, creative renditions of parts of our planet in two dimensions.  A mechanism for explaining our world.

The first time I ever saw a highlighter was when an agent at AAA assisted my dad in setting our driving path from Michigan to Washington, DC.  Tracing the route in bright yellow.  I was 8 years old and smitten.  This was soon followed by my love for the maps that came monthly with our National Geographic subscription. Such detail! Such memories of lying on the floor, exploring in miniature. Dreaming of places with names like Spunky Poodle, Ohio, Sandy Balls, England or Big Bone Lick State Park, Kentucky.  I was a kid after all!

Back then, Rand McNally was almost a household name. Providing an atlas with a state map on every page. I lived in England and Australia for a while before technology took over.  The A-to-Z book pronounced “A to Zed”, was a fixture in every automobile. You truly couldn’t have lived without them. Sadly, that is no longer the case. And I contend that our world has been somewhat diminished because of this.

I know that they are still available but who uses them? Not when a device can tell you exactly where to turn and when you have arrived at your destination.  Even altering your route to avoid traffic or danger.  Just let your phone direct you.  You don’t even have to think.  Yet, you may know where you are going but do you ever really know where you are?  What might you be missing?  Where is your sense of adventure?

I find it’s easier to orient myself on a big spread out paper map, with your eyes drawn to roads and routes and places you’d never notice on a small screen.  I think maps encourage the kind of exploration that happened in real life before technology. When you were out on the road, on a trail, in the woods...exploring. Instead of the turn-by-turn rigidity of a digital device. Then, it was as much about the journey as the destination. We weren’t in so much of a hurry.

Oh, how I miss the simpler times!  To lie on the floor and trace the route I was going to take the next day. To look for diversions and side roads to explore. Siri be damned!  Sure, she always gets me there, but how fun is that?  How can you ever find anything new if you always know where you are? 

By the way, what’s wrong with getting lost occasionally?  I would love to hear my parents arguing about that again.  By the way, a paper map doesn’t track where you’re going, or where you’ve been.  Your device certainly does.  How do you feel about that?  I think I’d rather get lost once in a while. But, like my dad and maybe even yours, I certainly would never ask anyone for directions!