The Bewildering Pine - Inspiration Is Found All Around - 4th Friday Post - January 26th

Hi Everyone!

It's time for my fourth Friday post again.. Fourth Fridays area peek into the world I am creating for my fantasy novel titled, "The Ledgerkeepers"


I'll be focusing over the coming moths on the things/places/tales from our world that have inspired my fiction and stories for this book.

Some of you know I began the world building for the book over 18 months ago. A slow process that I immersed myself in fully. I was well aware when I began that I might only use 1/10th of what I create, at least in the first book, but I needed it all to have the world make sense to myself as the narrator.

Choosing what to show is not difficult. Most of it is dictated by the characters actions and the setting they move through but there are always some bits of coolness that you just want to have in there no matter what!

So with my plan being to unveil the near complete Bewildering Pine map here next month, I wanted to talk abut about what inspired that map from our own physical world.

I knew the world was going to be set in a post cataclysmic landscape. The entire geography shifting and leaving many of the inhabitants of the pre "Great Upheaval" world in survival mode. How that might shape this world physically was a lot of fun to ponder.

The idea of a place surrounded by immense sea walls on three sides and incredibly high mountains on the fourth that rose up splitting a larger landscape and basically creating a large bowl shaped land t to the south hat rises to outward towards it's edges and slopes downward from north to south. Accessibility or departure is only via the bay whose natural defenses are tricky and dangerous in their own right and nearly imperceptible from the Great Sea beyond.

The climate is sub arctic but warmer several months of the year to allow for a massively productive growing season (the short-season). An ancient Pine forest spreads along the base of the mountains and there are two rivers that originate in the mountains. There is a round peninsula at the furthest point south that holds a large bog where all the runoff collects and saturates the loamy soil. It's a fantasy novel so I was able to stetch the bounds of reality a bit. It was only necessary that these things were all possible in the climate and then I could bend them to my writer's will a bit.

So in thinking of the form and function of the landscape, I simply looked to our own world for examples that gave me the "ok" I was seeking. I could have done all this research on the internet but I went to the main branch of our county library to try and capture some of that old-time investigative fun of looking through a stack of books!

This image really started the whole notion of the sheer cliffs and a very inaccessible landscape from the sea. 

This pic of the Andes mountains was perfect to inspire the mountain range which I wanted to be volcanic, sharp-featured staggered ridges and massively tall/impassible in my low-tech world. Also, it inspired a legend of the mountains being the remains of the last living giant's teeth. . . and that led led to an expression of surprise used among the folk: "Bezik's teeth!"

These bogs and the walkways that run through them are the inspiration for a similar area, known as Berwick, in my world. 

And this strange landscape in the Faroe Islands gave me the idea for the "bowl" shape with rising cliffs out at the edges. 

 So that's where the world began. Well, my fantasy world.   Having a starting point gave me the canvas for making the map, which is an ongoing work as well, and I hope to share it with you next month on fourth Friday!

Thanks for reading!!

Nicolas

PS: I recently listened to a short Sci-Fi-Fi story called "Repairing the World" by John Chu as read by Levar Burton on his Levar Burton Reads podcast. What I loved most about the futuristic world the story is set in was that there were only a few indicators that it WAS in the future. Rifts in the fabric of time that can be repaired and the use of mechanical dragonflies as messengers.  The story is completely about the main characters and the prejudice that survives in that future world,  the way society views people on it's fringes.  Leaving a very real and scary notion that things may not get better in every way as we move forward in time. . .  Well worth a listen though!

The Landscape of Imagination

I mentioned that I had begun reading "The Natural World of Winnie the Pooh: A Walk thru the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood" by Kathryn Aalto

It's a wonderful peek into the world of Winnie the Pooh's creator, A.A. Milne and the landscape, childhood memories and characters (his own son, Christopher Robin, and his stuffed animals that became the characters) that bring to life the Pooh books we all know.

I want to share a passage with you and then, a realization it opened for me.

In recent years, there has been concern that the very nature of childhood has changed. People have begun questioning if there has already been a "last generation" to play outside.  In "Last Child in the Woods", author Richard Louv writes about the modern disconnection between children and nature and the importance of providing children some autonomy in the natural world. "Whatever shape nature takes, it offers each child an older, larger world separate from parents. Nature can frighten a child too and this fright serves a purpose, too. In Nature a child finds freedom, fantasy and privacy, a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace."

When we are young, tramping through forests also leaves footprints on paths well into our adulthoods.

Throughout the writing of this book, for example, I heard laments from grandparents and parents about the diminishing range our children are now allowed to wander. Milne's childhood and his stories are touchstones of a paradise lost, of a bygone time that many - writers, psychologists, parents - believe is important in the development of a child. with these rising concerns over the nature of childhood itself, Milne's books offer a reminder about the importance of freedom in nature.


And that took me into thinking, as I so often do, about my own childhood.

I often say I grew up in a city, which I did.  A large industrial eastern US steel town. One decaying under the weight of the loss of those mills and industry. And many of my childhood experiences and the process of "becoming" are tied to very city-like adventures. Riding streetcars by myself, exploring downtown and all the people and activity of a city. But I immediately recognized something that I now feel so eternally grateful for. That in the midst of the urban life, I was fortunate to have woods, dense tree covered hillsides, (under which old mines lay) on either side of the house that I spent much of my childhood in. Entire days were spent exploring, making tree-houses (even if many of them were just a board slung through the branches to sit upon), following birds and squirrels, digging, climbing and creating worlds apart from the ones of my family and their adulthood. Time to be whatever and whoever I dreamed of being.

Much of what I write about in the short stories I am working on came from those childhood experiences and the imagination that the time. A mix of city experiences like "pitching nickels" with school friends against buildings and walls downtown. And also the woodland adventures scouting from treetops and crossing imaginary bogs and quicksand pits. Hiding from trolls under large spruce trees. . .

But to choose, one or the other? It's not even a question. The woods were far far more important to my future self.

The freedom of nature.

A separate peace.

And there was much in the world around me to necessitate that peace, that break from the slip-slide into adulthood.

Even today, my conversations with my own mother, who never had such a childhood and who I used to think of as being so overprotective but who, in comparison to many parents today would have been seen as very permissive, tend to be fraught with her lamenting the daily decline of the world around her. The news blaring from her tv all day long. And me, with no tv at all, no social media feeds, no newspapers. . . still the dreamer and believer, and every day seeking a deeper connection to that childhood me instead of that adult "other".

Maybe part of the problem is that it's the adults who forget and who become so lost in the very ideal of their own adulthood and it's many pitfalls and traps, that childhood seems eons away. Like a distant dream nearly unattainable now.

Or maybe more and more adults are coming from a childhood that lacks that time in nature, that freedom, that ability to develop those skills of nature's teaching?

I am saddened by the way kids become more screen bound and less independently imaginative with each passing year. I see it in the small town I live in, one surrounded with woods, blackberry patches, out of the places all bordering an expansive estuary/coastline/bay. The computers at the library are always in use. . . while many, many great and inspiring books, graphic novels and natural resources are not.

People defend this modern age as just the changing of the times and I do not disagree. Change is a given. . . but that simplified view asks us to accept that all change is, or can be, good, and that all change has an equal exchange within it of what is lost and gained.

It does not.

Losing the natural world, the freedom to explore, the ability to develop self-taught skills and stir imagination from within. . . there is no substitution for those.

All this is to say I never gave those woods, that space I had growing up, it's due. I took it for granted as just being part of the landscape but see now, thru the eyes of Pooh's creator, how very important it truly was. My own little "Hundred Acre Wood".

I see how it just being there for me each and every day amid the grind, noise and weight of the city, and of impending adulthood, was more important than I could have ever known.

Thank you for reading,

nicolas

I imagined building little cottages like this in my own childhood woods/forest many times.

Faroe Island Houses - N Scale

I am continuing to explore the very small world of N scale work this month. I had received a special request for an Adobe house in this small size and, once immersed in the scale, I decided to take the time out to try something I have been wanting to do for quite awhile. . .

Faroe Island Fairy Houses

The houses are made of scale model clapboard siding, polymer clay stone foundations, rooftops and chimneys ( not many actual stone chimneys to be found in the islands but I made the concession for my little "fairy" Faroese houses!) and N scale windows, doors and, of course, tiny sheep!

The Faroe Islands are found between Iceland and Norway in the North Atlantic Ocean. 18 islands make up this archipelago and the population is just around 50,000 total with several islands inhabited by less than 100 people. Now, those of you who know my preference for solitude, nature, a lack of hot weather and less-of-humanity-in-general may see why this is, in my opinion, a virtual paradise.

And the traditional HOUSES! Oh how I fell in love with these as a child while pouring through an encyclopedia (remember those?).  The following is from faroeislands.com



The Faroese Houses

The grass roofs are probably the first things you notice, and these have been a feature of the houses since the islands were first settled. In the Viking Age farmhouses had curved stone walls and the roof was supported by two rows of posts in a large common room with a longfire in the centre. Along the outer walls benches or seats were placed, a Faroese home today is still called a sethús (seat house) after these seats. And there is a good reason that the ancient name has survived, for on the Faroes the original longhouse lasted longer than any other place in Scandinavia.

The house, with its protecting stone walls and the large grass roof, gradually developed into the traditional Faroese dwelling with the stall at one end, in the middle the smoke room with the working and sleeping areas, earth floor and the open fireplace with the louver in the roof as smoke outlet and light intake. At the other end of the house was the glass room, the farmer’s fine parlour with windows and jamb stove. Inside the smoke room and glass room there were vertical planks set in a groove between the posts and sills.

This is the same construction that was used in the historic Norwegian stave churches, but in tree rich Norway the stave constructed houses were gradually replaced by the shorter loghouses with horizontal logs. The stave constructions, which required less wood continued in the Faroes until the beginning of the twentieth century. Gradually the stonewalls were replaced by wood, except perhaps in the ends of the houses oriented against the fiercest wind direction. From this originated the classic Faroese house a low and small longhouse, tarred brown or black with white painted mullioned windows, blending into the terrain under a large grass roof.

The churches were built in the same way. They were modest buildings, not much bigger than the other dwellings, but with a distinct difference: the little white bell tower, placed parallel or diagonally over the ridge of the roof. The inside of these churches are like chests made of untreated timber. All the designs are visible and simple, but every detail has its own special carving or image and the chancel wall, the half open wall between the nave and the choir, received the finest treatment.

Times changed and with the development of sea fishing new kinds of houses appeared. The longhouse was superseded by a more refined house on a high basement, and with dormers in the attic, but still tarred and with turfs of grass over a layer of beech bark. Then came fervent individualism, corrugated iron was placed as protection on the outside of wooden boards and together with the corrugated iron came paint in many colors. This colorful individualism has become respected through the years and even the authorities have supported it in later years, most directly in some experimental construction with individually built terraced houses in the northern part of Tórshavn.

The painted roofs dominate, but you can still see new buildings with green grass. The most important of these is the Nordic House, where, as in the older dwellings, the roof lies over the house like a protecting wing and enhances the lines of the landscape. The grass still has something of a symbolic meaning and maybe it is a type of nostalgia when it is used on private houses. On the other hand it is a living material, which insulates and protects and requires very little  maintenance. It also follows the beautiful seasons of the year and paints itself: brown in the autumn, white in the winter, burgeoning light green in the spring and lush green in the summer.

 

Yes, this is a place I imagine to be populated by more fae than humans. . . do an image search for the islands and you'll instantly see why. :)  

 

These will find their way into the shop soon but I am finishing a Faroese church before listing all three pieces at the same time. 

Thanks for looking!

nicolas

Rue de La Minuscule

It's not like I don't already have enough on the creative fire to keep me busy. . . but, truth be told, the more "have to's" that are beckoning. . . custom orders, replacing favorites and requests. . .. the more I want to do something completely new or different and get lost in another direction!

The benefit of this is that it almost always leads me to new things that end up being staples in my shops. So, this past week, with all the "have to's" circling and bearing down, I went off on yet another creative tangent.

Tiny

When I began working with polymer clay 5 years ago I had in mind the notion that smaller would be easier. That if I made things tiny, they would be less likely to show the learning curve as I grew into working with the clay. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Larger was easier and, out of that, I grew into making houses, statues etc etc but every once in awhile, I come back to "tiny". . .

It's been awhile this time but I thought I would go ahead and try something in a very small scale again and see where it took me.

The results were very satisfying and I wanted to share them here before they make it to my shoppe.

I originally decided to try one little French/European style shop. But it turned out so well I kept going and, well, as you can see below, my tiny idea became so much more!

 A trio of buildings and street, in N scale (1:148) that I am so happy with! I am going to create more and have little touches on the way, bicyclists, villagers etc etc to fill out the scenes. This took awhile, as one might imagine, and I do not expect they will move quickly but I LOVE creating on this scale!

So enjoy a little stroll down the Rue de La Minuscule

My ideal city apartment. . . .between a cheese shoppe and a wine seller! :)

Note to self. . . fix crooked flower pot!

Rue de la minuscule is just 4.5 inches long!

Very picturesque street I'd say!

More like this are already in process. A Venetian set of Burano houses with gondola and canal and a few one offs of my favorite Medieval town settings. . . those little corner buildings with a winding cobblestone path that wrap around and frame the house in those interesting and odd triangular plot shapes!  Who knows what else!

I expect to only complete a few of these a year but I have to say, working tiny is such a fun and satisfying thing to do!

Thanks for looking!

nicolas

Fairy Tales

It occurred to me very recently that perhaps the main reason I drift in and out of blogging is because I feel that so much of what I want to say and convey about the creative path I am on and the origins of it in my life are not spoken but, rather, find a way into my work each and every day. Often, at then end of the day with a number of visual images, gargoyles, fairy houses and Egyptian Gods and Goddesses all coexisting on my studio table, I realize my entire day has been filled with unspoken dialogues and enough words to fill a three volume set. :)

It also seems to make sense to me that I can choose the pieces to display here in blog form, not for publicity sake but for an opportunity to reveal what is behind them. Bit by bit to find the core ofmy place of origin and to, in a sense, add to the map of my life.

The other day I completed this piece as the first of a set that will be featured next year in Bewilder and Pine,

Miniature N Scale  - Hansel and Gretel Discover the Witches Cottage

This piece speaks to many of my origins. The worlds I would create within my childhood. Often invested in them alone and keeping them close to my heart as I just felt that any outside input or exposure would change them. Alter them and, in fact, weaken their power and place within my own mythology.

Second, as a pre-teen, my love for model railroading and building entire scenes of a new layout every year remain one of the most treasured ways that I spent time in that older-youth era. Of course, this was a pursuit embraced by my family as well so I could work on it in the open but, I am positive, no one ever really saw INTO that world I created each year. Every figure and every part of the overall scene had a backstory. A dialogue and a plot that often changed over the two months it was up and running. I'd add to it and rearrange it each year with a fresh view of it. In reality, the train was the least of my concerns. It was about taking these little pieces, people and structures and making something new from them that fit wit my own paracosm.

And fairy tales. . . I simply adore them. The dark, the light, the rambling and the brief. They remind me, simply put, of the worlds I create as well as the possibility of anything becoming our reality in this world.

Once, when I first moved to the Oregon Coast, I considered renting a piece of property/that had been started as a retreat space with a beautiful A-Frame house. The price was truly way out of my price range but I debated and schemed how I could manage it all  because the original owner had built, in the middle of the woods, a large, free standing mushroom room. Seriously. it stood 8 to 9 feet tall at the peak of it's red spotted mushroom cap roof and was about 7 feet in diameter on the inside with stained glass windows, electrical outlets and a hardwood floor.  I mean, it felt like a portal had opened and this mushroom had somehow slipped to our side from a fairy tale side of existence. What magic!

So, my point is that I truly believe that every person must create from what they know inherently. Or it comes off seeming false somehow. That doesn't mean it should or will be easy as often the most difficult roads are the ones that lead us back to ourselves.

And if we are lucky we find that trail of crumbs that the little Hansels and Gretels in us left behind. . .
we find or way thru the dark woods and past the scary creatures of this world. We survive to create new and personal tales. . . .and we all do this no matter what the path we take.

So, you'll likely see me around more often and I hope you won't mind the display of my work in the posts. It is how I get to what is inside and to what I truly want to say. . . . and quite often, it is all I have to say. :)

Thank you, as always, for reading. :)

nicolas

Small Town Vignette #1

There are so many things I absolutely love about living, by choice, in a little town of 800.  Some are expected given the size and some are random, it-could-only-happen-here, sort of events.



Across the street from my studio windows is an old fashioned Barber Shop with the old fashioned moving red, white and blue striped barber pole in the window. The woman who owns it is always very busy the five days a week she is open. Almost all old timer's and retirees are her clientele. It's a rarity to see her chair empty though.

Awhile back she was closed for months during a series of chemo treatments for cancer. When she returned the turnout was beautiful. . . all her old clients returned and business is, from where I sit, good.

Just the other day we noticed a new addition beside the barber shop. Built by her husband to look like and old style, blue and white phone booth, it is a little booth with a seat in it and the sign, instead of "Telephone" says, "Cell Phone Booth"

I love this for several reasons.

One, it's just a great way to say, "take your calls outside please!" without it being confrontational or rude. Seriously, I am so grateful to live in a place where the majority of people scrunch up their face and shake their heads when someone is using a cellphone inside a business. Personally, I have, for some time now, had it with the need for people to be "connected" 24-7 in every store and in every place of business. And I applaud any business that will draw that line and say, "Not in here"

But more than that I love the fact that, without a doubt in our town, there was no permit process or debate over whether this little addition was ok or not just off the public sidewalk. No sign zoning or city ordinance to deal with. Though it is quite possible a deal was made for volunteer hours or a donation.

The point is that I love being in a place where people are left to do as they wish (within limits) and that there is still room for a little ingenuity and originality and it doesn't cost you to do it at every turn. Occasionally this means having to deal with the guy who has a fire-pit and a couple of beat up couches on his lawn for his weekend loving, classic rock, beer drinking soirees. Even that becomes endearing in it's own way. . .

This little fishing town is changing as it turns it's collective eye to tourism a bit more but, in the meantime, I will enjoy the small things like that cell phone booth and celebrate the fact that places still exist where nothing much changes but, when it does, it isn't always necessary to fill out an application and apply for permission for it to change.

:)

Silence and Gratitude

I've done it again. . . gone over a month without saying much. . . silence is a dear friend to me but I seem to lose track of time so easily these days.

Some of you may know that I spent part of June and July on jury duty here. First on a trial jury for an eminent domain case and then, as luck would have it, my number was called to fill an absence on our county grand jury for two months immediately following that.

It was, in our small rural county, a breeze and simply a joy to serve on the grand jury. There was only one case where the members of the grand jury had any disagreement at all. And that was simply on a lesser, unimportant charge.

But I have to say that 8 consecutive weeks of listening to the stories of people who just can't get their life together, who seem to have no idea that there is another way to live and who, often, repeat the same mistakes countless times over within the lives they live. . . well, it all starts to wear on a person.

It drove me to a bout of silence and solitude in it's aftermath.

And from that comes a wealth of gratitude.

As one of my great aunts used to say repeatedly, "There, by the grace of God, go I"

I grew up with a brother, much older, who made just about every bad choice you can make when it comes to life. And while some families seem to breed a consistent pattern of such behavior, I am happy to say that he was the exception to the rule in ours. And all that I saw him go through was like a guide book of what not to do. . . how not to live.

But there is one event in my young adult life that I believe was very instrumental to my not turning out like that or ever stepping down those pathways at all.

When I was 19, out of school, a little lost myself. . . a friend of mine at a club (where I was underage) one night asked out of the blue, "Hey, do you want to go to Europe?"

She was trying to get some distance from a suffocating girlfriend/relationship and just wanted to get far away for a few weeks.Europe seemed far enough. . .

I, with little thought, said "Sure, why not."

That trip and all of it's twists and turns was a life changer for me in how I perceived the world around me. Suzy, who I always thought was such a strong person, had trouble with the currencies, the languages, the constant need to be on our guard and make decisions and meet trains, get rooms etc etc. And I, who had no idea I could, stepped up to fill in when she was unable, and vice versa. . .  we were perfect travel companions and I leanred so much about my own abilities and areas that needed improvement.

We spent an all-nighter in Piccadilly Circus in London when we could not get a train out due to not having British pounds after banking hours. We considered, but rejected, an offer from a young couple to stay and work in their pub in the Lake District, and then our proposed "day trip" to Paris that ended up being a 4 day love affair with all things French.

There was the little Riviera village of Menton where I was solicited by a little old grocery store owner as a date for her granddaughter and, again, offered a job. ( I spoke French fairly well then)

The overnight mail train to Scotland and stepping out, pre dawn in Edinburgh, just in time to see the sun arriving over the mythic Arthur's Seat. . .

The list goes on. And while I neglect to mention them there were plenty of moody moments and discouragements too. . .

But the truth is, all these years later, I can look to that journey as the time I came to realize there were no limits to where I could go or what I could do. I returned to the US but could have easily stayed in France, Britain, Scotland, Switzerland, Belgium. . . somehow, just knowing I could, was enough.

And I can say in retrospect that I never looked at life the same again. . . suddenly the world was wide open and while I had little desire to roam the world in a drifting way, I knew that I was not limited to one thing, one place, one situation, for any amount of  time.

I grew to believe that I could create any world I wished as well, no matter where I was.

This is turning out to be true creatively too. I do not feel stuck to any one thing or "life" with my creativity. If I want to try to succeed at something new, I will. And, without a doubt, I have created the ability to make a living by not only doing what I love and being true to who I was in childhood, but by adapting and shifting when necessary to keep things moving forward. 

A little compromise, a little stubbornness, a little solitude . . .  and a lot of faith.

So yes, there is much gratitude for what I avoided by allowing myself to open to possibilities. Years later I learned that this country I live in is big enough to provide a wealth of scenery, lifestyle and opportunity if one is willing to get up and go. . .

In the end, I have chosen simplicity. Small town, rural county, more cows than people. . . the internet makes this possible, opening new opportunities to just about anyone. . .

That'sit really. . . not so much a story as a meandering of thought.

With a healthy does of gratitude for everything in my world.

For any of YOU if you took the time to read this.

Autumn is hanging so close on the horizon.
My season of choice
And as always
I will emerge
Create
And be grateful. . .

~nicolas

The Mapmaker's War

The Mapmaker's War. . . I am currently submerged in this wonderful book by Ronlyn Dominique

Often it can be the first line or few paragraphs of a book that really draws me in. . . this one went beyond pulling me in with the following early narrative. . .

With meticulous care, you planned your provisions, though not your expeditions. 

Adventure wasn’t in the hunger to come but in the quest of what to follow. You packed your pouch | nuts and fruit, soft bread and hard cheese | along with parchment and ink, cloth scraps and straight edges.

You mapped the hidden worlds when you were still young enough to see them.

Spiderwebs and honeycombs taught the wisdom of symmetry. To you, everything before your eyes was built upon invisible lines and angles. The very spot where you stood only a point among many. A girl is not always in her place, you thought. A girl can be many places at once. And so you were. When you settled upon a space in the forest or meadow, you made a grid on the earth with small steps and tiny flags until there were row upon row of even little squares. You took your seat within the grid. You moved from square to square, noting what stood still and what passed by. All day long you observed and measured, sketched and colored. That which was off the edges appeared on the parchment as well. There were mysterious realms of bees and ants and creatures never seen before, with tiny castles and bright gardens.

 
In my previous post, Paracosm, I spoke about the beginnings of my imaginative childhood worlds and how they have been with me all through my life, even when I tried to put them aside. . .

This book took me immediately back to those days and the themes within it, mostly mythic and universal, truly touched a part of my soul that recognized it instantly as kin.

I feel like this is my charge again, among the worlds that others often neglect and, in some cases, never see. There is work to be done and many uncharted places to visit here. . .

Mapmaking is much more than pen to paper

It is about perspective and acute observation
It's about seeing with something more than our eyes
It's a visual poetry

When we look at early maps, what do you see? Do you see the world as you now know it NOT to be and think, "Oh, they had it so wrong then!" or do you simply surrender to the wonder and beauty of it, of the time and place and the impossible motivation that made people create them?

How we see maps tells a lot about us too. . . 

What a good mapmaker sees, or what a mapmaker reads are more than pinpoints and land plots.
There is nothing finite about a map and the good ones seem to have no beginning and no end.
Like the art of writing kanji, each line begins off the page and then, on the other end, the motion and movement which are always present, carries the brush off the into space. 

It is not a series of points.  . but the motion of a living, breathing entity.

It does not end.

And so, again, I hammer home the point (to myself) that where we come from, the formative parts of our imagination, the maps we made, have no end.

If we try to constrain it to a page
A part of our history
A finite set of coordinates
It is incomplete.

Maps of all kinds change too
Constantly

There is a second story I love and often return to that has this same effect on me. You can, of course, read this one too but you can also HEAR it read on the podcast, Selected Shorts, if you are inspired enough to dig for it online.

It's called "The Mappist" by Barry Lopez

Of course, the pattern here, for my own purposes, is telling.

I am always returning to the mapmaker within
The charts and excursions of my youth.
My landscapes

Nothing stays the same and that is why we should, I believe, revisit and remap those spaces too. . .
it's why I intend to do so for the remainder of my days . . . my motion in a lifetime that also began off the page, appeared, and will one day exit into space again.

And through it all, I will remember this line from "The Mappist", to help keep my sense of placeas I go

“don’t make the mistake of thinking you, or I or anyone, knows how the world is meant to work. The world is a miracle, unfolding in the pitch dark. We’re lighting candles. Those maps- they are my candles. And I can’t extinguish them for anyone.””

Make your maps. dive into YOUR landscapes, and most of all tell and retell your stories as your miracle unfolds.

~nicolas