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Map Quest

We lived across the country from my grandparents for much of my childhood. The trip to visit took a day, maybe two, depending on where we were coming from at the time, and as the only non driver in the family unit, I was handed a map and taught how to read it at the age of six, contributing as navigator. I'd get a directive like "we'll be hitting Nashville close to rush hour so I'd like to go around instead of through" and I'd give orders like "in two miles you'll be taking exit 147A on the left toward Lebanon so you should start getting over now" and the driver would actually do what I said. It was a very-confidence building experience.


A map of my favorite place to write

I still love maps, and I have a broad definition of what I consider a map. There's the traditional sort, of course - wide earth made flat, roads and river unimaginably long and broad now traceable with a fingertip. I'm not averse to using GPS, especially if I'm going somewhere new on a timeline, but I still look over the route options I'm given and familiarize myself with the chosen one before setting out. 


Their most recent Kiwi Crate subscription was on mapping, so we made treasure and locking chests and maps to find them. They were so pleased that they had me make maps for their Easter eggs, as well, instead of the more traditional hunt

Since the kids were small, I've always kept up a running patter while driving about our route, with the goal of getting them to notice and be aware of their surroundings, and also to be able to give directions back to our house from anywhere in town, even if they didn't remember the exact address. It's made them into atrocious backseat drivers ("Mommy, that light is green now" "Mommy there's a truck very close behind us" "Mommy I don't think this is the way to the snow cone place") but even the the two year old can tell when we're "almote home" regardless of the direction we're approaching home from.

A recent realization I've had around my love of lists is that a list is a kind of map - a day or an errand laid out in order, just in written form rather than drawn. This was recently highlighted when I made my favorite kind of "pretty list," where different elements are color coded and the whole things meanders across the page in an organized but very non-linear fashion, with little arrows indicating the order in which things are to be done, based on timing and location.

I suspect that's probably also why I like bullet journaling - there are a lot of small symbols and neat ways of organizing information, and the dot grid paper lends itself well to multidirectional writing and geometric drawing. Mine has evolved over the three years since I officially started bullet journaling, but it holds monthly and weekly layouts, planned expenses and creative projects, notes from talks and books and my own head, lists of things to do and vision boards of goals to reach for. All of it - the maps, the lists, the bullet journaling - is ultimately a way of combining what I know of the world around me with the way I want it to be.

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