I love maps.  Oh how I love them!

I have no idea where this adoration came from exactly.  I have no recollection of being specifically taught to appreciate maps.  I just remember them being a vital facet of my upbringing.

Maybe it had to do with the maps that would come neatly tucked away in various issues of National Geographic.  It was like a treasure hunt all its own flipping through the latest issue to see which exotic place would be mapped out this time.  I remember spending hours pouring over maps, reading names of places, and considering distances between things.  Oh and globes!  I mean, they just put everything in perspective, so much more than a map!

Maybe it came from knowing missionaries who trotted ’round the whole wide globe.  If you’ve spent any time in an evangelical Christian church then you’ve seen them too–the laminated maps spotted with push-pins tied round with string leading back to a picture of a family (presumably the picture is outdated 10 years to the family’s last furlough state-side).  Maybe it was sitting there in church on Sunday mornings hearing about people and places far and wide, or learning about giant killer Amazon scorpions, or seeing a demonstration of how to use a stealthy blowgun, or hearing tales of less-than-palatable entrees complete with eyes looking right a’cha that gave me an appetite for finding out where all such places were.

Or maybe, I just have a need to be oriented in the world.  You know?  Its a comforting feeling to know where I am in relation to the world around me.

To this day I pour over maps.  I could get lost in an atlas like I can get lost in a dictionary.  I mean, have you ever just stopped and considered all that is Canada?  It literally boggles my mind to wonder what is up there–what creatures, what ice-scapes, what perfectly exquisite aurora borealis graces the extreme north.  And then there’s Alaska and Hawaii always short changed in the little inset box on the map but friends, they are just way the heck out there in the boondocks of the North and the Pacific respectively!

I do appreciate maps’ daily functional values as well, not just for the awe-inspiring wonder times!  I recently moved and so I’ve been reorienting myself to my new space on this globe.  I like to know the streets of my neighborhood, how they flow, and where they intersect.  I like knowing the highways and the how’s and where’s of their intersections as well.  I loathe entirely when roads are counter intuitive e.g.: one street is going along quite happily until it stops suddenly, but wait, it hasn’t ended, it has just shifted a block or two and continues, until it shifts a block or few back to original position on the grid.  Seriously?!  Or when there is the same street name in two totally different parts of town yet the street is not actually the same; just has the same name…entirely irksome.  But!  Sometimes, oh sometimes there are those sweet moments when a hunch, savvy map reading, and the stars all align and I savor the taste of sweet sweet navigational victory!  Oh what delight is mine!

Believe it or not, that very thing happened tonight.  I decided I wanted to stop by my-favorite-market-ever on my way home from work.  It is not, however, actually on the way so I was considering the most practical and efficient way to go.  I could go to the one in my old neighborhood or the one near my new one.  I figured each one was about equally out of the way from my humble little abode.  Then *bing (that is the sound of a light bulb going on) it occurred to me: if I take my current highway to the next highway and head south maybe, just maybe, there will be an exit of that highway onto the road on which my-favorite-market-ever is located.  I cackled with glee as I cruised down the off-ramp to see that I was spit out just two blocks from my-favorite-market-ever!  I literally declared out loud, “Oh sweet navigational victory is mine!”

I used to have this map. I just love the mythical sea beasties; they somehow make the whole map-wonder that much more magical!

Yeah.  I’m just that much of a dork.

I absolutely adore when a directional hunch proves to be the just right thing.  Of course, the flip side is the wounded pride when my internal compass goes completely haywire and lands me heading straight for the really super wrong side of the tracks.  But then again, most of the time, I really don’t have a problem losing myself because then I can figure out how to find myself and generally, along the way, I’ve gained one more piece of insight into where I am in relation to the rest of the world.