a man sets out to chart the world.

A man sets out to chart the world. Through the years, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, tools, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the images of his own face. – Jorge Luis Borges

Growing up, my dad subscribed to National Geographic. I know I’m not alone in sharing this memory of the yellow binding and images of places far reaching from that of my small town. With each month, came a map of a specific country, region or continent highlighted in the magazine. My dad began pinning up these maps each month on the back of the kitchen door. As we’d sit eating dinner, occasionally, he’d ask us questions in regards to the current map- to see if we’d at all studied it. At the time, I saw it as one of his round about ways to educate us. Little did I understand at that time, what value there was in this learned knowledge. It wasn’t soon after that I too began pinning maps on the back of my bedroom door. To this day, the ‘New Europe’ (from 1992) map is still in my procession. This was back when Czechoslovakia and a Yugoslavia was still in existence yet this was the ‘New Europe’. No longer was there a USSR or a divided Germany. I would often trace imaginary routes of where I’d travel to in Europe some day.

After backpacking Europe in 2000, one of the first things I did when I got home, was to go back and outline the actual route I took throughout Europe. When I moved from that college era home- this was the very last thing I removed from the house, almost reluctant to let go of this chapter of my life.

Well over a decade has passed since I first put that map on my bedroom door. And tonight, I found myself sitting on the floor of my room surrounded by maps of European cities, hotel brochures, restaurant cards, metro tickets, museum passes, postcards and random trinkets all from the past few years of tours. Here I was making room for the next year of tours’ collection. All these places which were far off distant places where now familiar places where I have friends and know the streets better than that of my current address. You never know where life will take you.. when you're willing to go without knowing.