Today, Tuesday, January 23rd, I was enjoying my Rest and Reading period after my first of the day dog walk. I am reading - IN EXTREMIS; THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE WAR CORRESPONDENT MARIE COLVIN, by Lindsey Hilsum.
The was recently a movie released on her life entitled A PRIVATE WAR the trailers for which seemed to ask "Why" Why would a woman put herself in danger over and over to get the news stories for the papers? Funny how they don't ask that about male reporters! They are simply brave and heroic, but for a woman journalist, she must by psychologically damaged.
Anyhow, her biography is entirely engaging and her story so fascinating that I also bought a book of the compiled essays she wrote for the Sunday Times before her death on the frontline in Syria. Both the biography and the essays also give a view of the art of journalism, how Marie Colvin's Yale education opened her eyes to how personalizing history gives it more engagement with the readers than 'just the facts.' Since I am a writer as well as a reader, I am always interested in the art of the story.
To my chagrin, however, I found myself floundering in trying to picture in my mind the location of the countries in the Middle East. There are, of course, some of which I have a clear picture of the shape and location such as Morocco (having been there) and Egypt (all the years of learning about Egyptian Art plus Lawrence of Arabia, the movie, and Israel, since I have followed the history of the founding and survival of Israel which has roughly followed the years of my own life story. Also, I was pretty clear on Iraq and the Mesopotamian region from my Art education, but I had more trouble with Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Kuwait. So I got out my trusty hardbound Encyclopedia volume M and made a printer copy of the map of the Middle East.
At the time, I was remembering all the beloved maps of my life - the gorgeous roll out maps hanging over the blackboard in the classrooms of both my youth and my years as a teacher. I retired just as they were all put into storage and replaced by 'smart screens' but I rescued one from my soon to be demolished old art room and put it in my den - a map of the continents of the world.
Also, as a child, my brother and I had wooden map puzzles of the world and the states of the United States which we loved to put together.
The maps of the continents and of the United States were once constants on the walls of classrooms and we children grew up with their image beside us. I loved the colors, those muted rose and sky blue, soft golden yellows and gentle greens. You can buy those maps on e-bay. They run about $50 and recently they were featured in some home decorating magazines as vintage wall decor. I wish more homes had them and more citizens and children were aware of the layout of the countries we see in the news every evening. Even though, admittedly, the names of the countries are always changing as well as some of the borders, it is enlightening to have a mind picture of the places and their relationship to one another.
Along with those maps, I also still carry in my car an atlas of New Jersey which I also still use, even though I have a gps. Three subjects I would bring back if I could would be CIVICS, GEOGRAPHY, and PUBLIC SPEAKING.
A really fun item I used to enjoy from the magazine Weird New Jersey was fun images of things in the shape of our state - oil spills on parking lot tarmac, patches of sky visible through tree canopies, puddles in the sand of the beach. A wonderful quirky and puzzling art concept work that I saw at the University of the Arts back in the 90's was a strange arrangement of those plastic cocktail party glasses, all half filled with water. Because I was doing an art project of my own at the time on the shapes of rivers, I was one of the few who realized what I was looking at - a map in plastic water glasses of the Delaware River!
I wish we had more maps in public places and that we were all a little more aware the shapes of the places on our planet!
Happy trails and trail maps!
Jo Ann
ps. Here is a challenge: See if you can draw a map of the US from memory? Then see if you can draw a map of Europe! If you can do all that, move on to Mexico, Central American, South America and try the continents! BRAVO if you can do those. If you can do the Middle East - my hat is off to you!
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