Steps on a Map
A poem about life's hidden turns...
"Steps on a Map" was an idea born from a conversation with my mother about the unexpected twists and turns a person’s life takes. Over coffee and brandy, we chatted about life and how our expectations of it rarely match up. In a moment of momentary caffeine and liquor-inspired wisdom, I quipped that a person’s life is like the borders drawn on a map. They look like straight lines, but as you zoom in and get closer, the more jagged and erratic the lines become. Nobody's life follows as straight a line as it appears.
There tends to be, particularly in the social media age, a sense of watching the highlights and snapshots of a person’s life as an accurate representation of their lived experience. What is often missed are the darker days. So as I sat thinking about our conversation, I wanted to capture these days in a poem and highlight how those are the ones that are often obscured from sight. Aside from the fact that the hardest days are likely to build the most character and resilience, they are also likely to receive the fewest likes and shares. But rather than dunking on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the like, it's probably best to rewind the clock even further and realize that even before the social media age, people did the same, but usually only to their local group. So we are a species of peacocks without feathers. There’s nothing wrong with this, and I wouldn’t use this platform to pretend I’m any better or more virtuous than the next person.
But the days trudging through the mud are the ones I wanted to highlight. I rarely write stories with a bright perspective and want to use a darker tone to highlight those moments of struggle. The repeated chorus of "A step forward, A step to (right), A step, A step..." isn’t just the cadence of an intoxicated person, but the jagged line left on a map by a person who is trying to find their way through the fog, the forest, or whatever other metaphor you need to understand your path.
This poem wasn’t written with the intent of becoming the opening chapter of "The Intervening Space," but its theme of unknown paths is probably the perfect opening salvo for this project. I don’t know where this substack will take me or what to expect from it, but I hope that if you are reading this, you will take this unknown journey with me and challenge my thoughts, themes, and stories at every jagged turn.
Steps on a Map
Here you see a map’s rendition,
Lines on carte my grown attrition
Stand back the lines all parallel,
Hiding scars from days in hell.
A step forward
A step to left
A step
A step
Time lost to theft.
Show me lines that go ahead
I’ll show you lines you’ve all misread
Through meadow’d valley and mountain pass
Jagged lines beautify stained glass
A step forward
A step to right
A step
A step
To shine the light.
In the dark, the days grow cold
The weathered face of men grown old
My path forward I redefine
Turn left turn right to find my shrine.
A step forward
A step to back
A step
A step
To heal the crack.
March froward through the fog unknown
To find a place for cornerstone
The path juts out chaotically
Yet borders drawn so orderly.
A step forward
A step aside
A step
A step
The map has lied.