Mosaic Map 3 – Get it from my shop onto your wall!
“Where are you going? You were supposed to make that turn!” Nick said.
“Well I didn’t know, why didn’t you tell me?” I shot back as I slowed down to make a U-turn.
“Really? How many times have we gone this way?” he asked.
“Uh, never. We’re always coming from the opposite direction!”
“Really?”
It was true, we had taken these back roads dozens of times to weave around traffic on the way to work, but this was the 1st time we’d ever driven the route heading home. The turns are on the other side of the road, in reverse order, and the scenery is totally different… very confusing to me. So confusing, I’d missed the very 1st turn.
If a cop ever asks me to recite the alphabet backwards, I’m screwed.
So I suck at navigation, forwards, backwards, all of it. I’m always studying maps before I drive anywhere solo. When I don’t understand the maps, I’ve even used Google street view to give myself a simulated pre-drive… what would I do without Google?
Sometimes I try to plan my life the same way. I Google how to do this or how to do that, trying to find a road that will lead me to my dream life. Unfortunately, there are no maps into the future… but there are maps of the past. In any life map, the paths are only visible after you’ve traveled them. And unlike regular road maps, I can read my life’s map as easily as I can read a Dr. Suess book.
I try not to live in the past anymore than I have to, but sometimes it’s really useful to have a little retrospect. Looking back at my road map in reverse I can clearly see the roads that had dead ends and those that led to bigger, wider streets. I can see the short roads, the long roads, and the roads that led me to places I wanted to be.
There is no final destination, just more roads.
Did you know?
Patrons got to see this 2 days before anyone else, and that’s only the start of Patron perks!
Artsy Reflections started out as the Photo and 100 Words project back in 2014 – find out why I started it and how it evolved.
