On Maps and Journeys

These are some of the lines I wrote in the Maps and Journeys Writing Workshop.

My journey through adolescence was largely one taken in solitude, a cultivated solitude. Every once and awhile however, under a full moon, a pebble tossed against my bedroom window around midnight would interrupt my solitude. It was a welcome break. That pebble sound is wonderful to recall. Do young people (or adults) still throw pebbles at windows to announce a clandestine arrival? I hope so. I’d love to hear that sound on my window again.

Was it the better pebble-on-the-window story: boy crawls out the window to meet the girl? Or the girl crawls through the window to meet the boy?

If we could return to a state of mind where nature was god or God, it would complete the failed terrible journey of monotheism.

The internet has encouraged a journey into dark portals of hate. And people are making a lot of money from this.

I am paying a man who believes my journey to become a writer made me sick.

You can slog through a journey and perhaps the slogging serves a more enlightening purpose.

A map can’t tell you what you’ll find.

I am the official cartographer for Oregon Tavern Age country.

I used to own dozens of beautiful atlases and perused them all the time for work and pleasure. At some point I got rid of them and now I deeply regret that. I’ve needed them. Atlases used to be a standard gift that I and many others gave and/or received. They were handsome, coffee-table size books and often passed down as heirlooms. The internet basically killed off the atlas. I want to rescue an atlas from a thrift stores and give it a second life.

Cartography is a great word. I want to be a cartographer with my writing. I am starting to believe the Bonnie and Clyde book might be a map of some kind that depicts (without directions) where we need to travel and explore as human beings to make this a better, more just, humane loving, ecologically sound country.

I want 3-D maps in my life, the kind with bumps and ridges, the kind I can trace with my fingers. They reveal so much more than just elevation.

I decorated all my classrooms with old maps I rescued from oblivion. I loved the old maps that I could pull down, then hitch the cord, and the map would stop instantly, and face the students will all its display map glory. The maps that were always out of date (and maps are always out of date the second they are published) were my favorite. I once gave friends some of those pull down maps I took home with me from school. I wish I had one now.

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