I know I’ve mentioned my love of chalkboards, but I also have a bit of love for maps. I love the look of maps, the soft colors of blue and green and yellow, but also the black and white antique maps and the bold colors often used on the USA map. And not just maps, but globes, too. I would love to have a variety of globes adorning the mantel one day.
But what fuels this love? Is it because I often dreamt of living in other places when I was a kid? Of expanding my horizons far past the little town I grew up in? Maybe. Or it could simply be an aesthetic one. Maps are pretty.
I can tell you it is not because I am an expert at reading maps. I am the person who decided that the best way to get to Texas from Maryland was not to consult a map, but to drive west and then eventually south, guessing I’d see a sign that would direct me the further I got from Maryland and the closer I got to Texas. Luckily my mother intervened and forced a road atlas into my hands minutes before I hit the open road. (I say luckily because I did use the map to get me to my destination which the Adult Me recognizes as the best result, but really might have my plan worked also? The Free Spirit Me believes it might have made for a far more interesting trip!) Granted, I was 19 at the time, but I’m pretty sure that today if there was no Mapquest and I didn’t have a GPS in our car I would be more inclined to trust there would be signs and not consult a map.
I suppose I learned map reading skills sometime during my education, but somewhere between longitude and latitude and identifying countries in front of the entire classroom…well, it coincided with having to wear glasses and being embarrassed at wearing those awful brown glasses and so having no idea what was going on in the front of the classroom because I couldn’t see…well, you get the idea. I’m pretty sure I missed out on acquiring decent map reading skills out of vanity.
It was on one of my subsequent cross country trips when I was driving west with a friend of mine that I learned map reading was a skill. And I say that because I’d never given it a thought until that trip. I’d handed my friend the map and asked her to navigate and it stressed her out so much I had to pull over and give her a pep talk. She always referenced that trip, about how I helped her to see that she could, in fact, do something like read a map, which I guess had at one time been an issue in her childhood. My husband would probably think this is funny because I’m pretty quick to hand him the map or to call him for navigational advice!
What about you, dear Reader? Any life skills you’ve found yourself lacking as you navigate the bumpy road of adulthood?
Andrea Miles 
Linda, being lost can be stressful, but sometimes it is the best way to take a journey. I need to get lost more often 🙂 Thanks for visiting!
Julie, that is too funny! Glad to know I’m not the only one who struggles with L & R.
My sister does not know her left from right. She does the L method also. When we are lost, I have often asked which way she thinks we should go and then do the oppsosite. It is a proven method to find the right way.
I’m like you. I’d leave and just head in the direction I thought I needed to go in. Of course I also would be hopelessly lost in ten minutes, but that would be part of the fun! 😀
Brenda, your comment made me laugh out loud! Thanks for answering my question!!
I think, not I am sure, I missed the lesson on boys/men and how to read them. I love ’em but they remain aliens to me. 🙂 You did ask which lesson I missed.
I’m sorry, sir, but you were to comment on what life skills YOU were lacking, not sharing additional skills I lack. My inability to remember left/right is probably a sure sign of my genius, which I prefer to keep under wraps lest folks think I’m bragging!
Good point. It is nice to see the whole picture, helps put things in perspective. I try to garden, but that’s not going so well and I’m afraid to try canning. Thanks for visiting!
It’s one of those things where you are happy for the technology, but then again, perhaps the technology doesn’t really help us because if it failed, we’d be lost!
That is funny about not having your friend’s flight info. Kinda sounds like something I’d do!
Interesting that this entire post neglected to mention what I think may be foundational to your lack of map reading skill.
I was astonished to observe while we were dating the method that you often employed to keep track of which direction was left vs. right by holding up your left hand in the shape of an ‘L’. It was hysterical to me why anyone would need to learn this more than once!
I too like maps, the paper kind. It’s because if want to see the WHOLE picture, unlike what you get with digital maps that show you only a small piece of where you are going.
As for lacking skills, gardening and canning are the two biggies. I’m not good at gardening, and I hate the very idea of canning, yet people seem to be returning to these old timey pursuits.
Give me a map, a car, and I’m off!
I’m also a map fan. Haven’t succumbed to buying a GPS, but there have been times it would have made things a little easier. My kids, however, couldn’t get across their own city by reading a map. Yet another skill lost by a generation raised on Google. I love maps because I love the big picture of how one place relates to another.