A Memory Map

On knowing and loving a place well

I’ve been directionally challenged all my life. My family still teases me about the time I got behind the wheel of the family van for the first time, fresh out of Driver’s Ed, and asked my dad for directions.

Reader, we were heading to church. A place we had gone nearly every Sunday my entire life.

In my defense, I always read a book on the way there and back. How was I supposed to remember the route?

Also, I used to hate maps because they made me feel so dumb. Maybe it’s because I’m a word person? I just know that spatial skills are not my strong suit.

Only in my twenties did I (kind of) get a handle on map reading. But with the advent of Google Maps and GPS, I only need to see a tiny segment of a route. I outsource my brain to the smartphone and arrive at my destination much more efficiently than I used to—no more going in circles till something looks familiar, no more stopping to ask for directions. But I fear my nascent map skilz are in danger of atrophying.

Yet there is one place on this planet that I know so intimately that you could set me down anywhere and I’d know where I am. It’s the golf course where I’ve taken a succession of poodles for walks. (It’s actually a public park, leased to a golf course—don’t hate on me.)

I’ve been treading that ground for a good 15 years or so. In all seasons and every kind of weather, at all times of day (and sometimes night). Sometimes in a gang (“dog club”) or one other person, but more often just with my dog.

We go early-early to avoid getting beaned by a golf ball, till wintertime when the course closes and the neighbors can sled, build snow people, crosscountry ski, make snow angels, stroll, saunter, jog, cavort, etc. any old time.

Sometimes I’ll walk with a friend who has no clue where we are in relation to the surrounding neighborhood, and it hits me. Lost is my M.O. It’s weird to be the one who knows the way.

So I started thinking about all the places of significance on the grounds. My internal map includes:

—the bridge Tom christened “electrobridge” because it supposedly shocked his dog that one time

—the high ground overlooking the rest of the course that Sun always called “Behold Hill,” lifting up his own (tiny) poodle for a look

—the “Corner of Awesomeness” (also Sun’s coinage), a spot by the clubhouse where sunrise warms the stone walls, no matter the wind chill

Corner of Awesomeness, 2014 dog club outing. Scout (left) always had a lot to say!

—the place along the path where native cutleaf toothwort comes up in early spring

—the pines under which obscenely pink and phallic mushrooms emerge every year

—the slope where Harry (red dog in the above photo) somehow got stuck in the undergrowth, till we rescued him

—the creekbank where my Opal tried to slip down to the water in her dotage and also got stuck, till I hauled her big-boned body up

—the low wet area by the path, from which she inexplicably ate mud every day

—the tree under which her predecessor, Marley, self-soothed during frenetic dog club moments by shredding up sticks, later to poop out wood shards

—the spot by the creek where the dead opossum drew Faith for weeks

—the back corner where we all erupted in joy at seeing a bald eagle soaring over

—the friendly hackberry tree, always good for a grounding lean

Me and Faith. Me and Opal. Me and Marley. Three poodles, same tree. Also, same hat!

Every inch of the place is layered with memory:

Sighting foxes, groundhogs, turtles, kingfishers, herons, bluebirds, pileated woodpeckers, flickers, indigo buntings, and twice a couple of wolf-dog hybrids securing the perimeter.

Descending the stone steps while a friend photographed me with poodles 1 and 2.

Passing the long, early-morning queue of people ready to vote at the clubhouse in the 2016 presidential election. How moved and hopeful I felt (what did I know!).

Moonlit walks with K. Snowy walks with my artist friend R. and her little furry boy, Simon. Predawn walks with writer friend R. Winter walks with childhood friend H.

Standing on a bridge with Marley, a wall of snow coming at us.

Finding a baby snapping turtle in the wrack line of the creek after a big downpour made it flood its banks.

The time the neighbor kids, now grown, let me borrow their saucer for a quick slide down a shallow hill.

The time D. and I took her then-teenaged kids’ sleds to go down the steeper hill. We synchronized our first run, screaming and laughing and landing in a heap at the bottom where we laughed some more, so long and hard that it opened a forgotten space under my ribs.

The footbridge where she and I found a small fish one day in winter, and later I wrote a piece about this bridge-jumper-in-reverse, using a fake name “Alma” for her, which made her feel some kind of way (Alma? Really?). But I swore she had, at some point, told me that that was the fake name she would prefer, though I never could find corroboration in email or text history.

I could go on, but you get the gist.

Long and short of it is: My map skills and sense of direction may stink, but put me out there and I can find the nearest exit point or potential hazard or low spot where the water pools after storms. I know where the first golfers of the morning will be aiming (avoid! avoid!) and where it’s safe to ramble even after daybreak. I know how to lengthen a winter walk with a circuitous meanders…and still I always know where home is (over there, through the trees and across the creek).

As I began to ruminate on this post, I happened to be reading Brian Doyle’s fantastic novel Martin Marten. If you don’t know it, check it out—it’s a highly enjoyable place-based YA read like none other. Coincidentally, there is a strong map theme running through the book. The youngest character, a five-year-old girl who seems to be a prodigy, makes an elaborate map of her home that encompasses things you’d never imagine.

Maybe you, also, have a place that feels like part of you, that you know and love intimately. I wish that for you. It’s such a gift.