A map

Posted at the base lodge for the Appalachian Mountain Club, is a list of ten things to be sure you take when hiking in the White Mountains. I can remember a few of the items: extra layers of clothing, food, a headlamp, a whistle, a hat, a lighter. I can’t recall the other three things but last on the list is a map. We always seem to forget to bring one. When we visited Eliza at one of the high mountain huts where she once worked, she would advise us on the best trail to take; The Gale River Trail got us to Galehead Hut, the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail to Lakes of the Clouds, the Valley Way to Madison Spring Hut. We would pull our car into the parking lot as directed, park, strap on our packs, find the trailhead and just start walking knowing that Eliza was at the top of the mountain waiting for us.

Even when you know where you are going, it is still good to have a map. Questions arise; what if the trail is washed out, what if you want to go back down the mountain a different way, what if there is a fork in the trail that you didn’t expect? You may wonder, how much further until I have reached the top? A map will give you the answer. How many false summits must I climb before getting to the real thing? (sometimes it’s better not to know this). “We should have brought a map,” we say at times like this, looking accusingly at one another. Whose responsiblity was it to bring one?

A map can be a comfort in this uncharted world we live in. I often longed for a map when my children were young and were facing some kind of normal but at the time hard problem. Hasn’t someone figured this out, I’d wonder and can’t they just tell me what to do? How to proceed when the trail is washed out or when we want to deviate from the well worn path?

Books are my maps. Good writing can shed a light on the things I struggle with. I like to know how others have navigated their lives. What choices have they made? How have they dealt with the transitions that have faced them all along the way. We have so much to learn from each other but in the end, even after gathering lots of information, the decisions are up to us. A buddhist saying: a long journey begins with a single step. On a trail, the map is useful. In life, the map of our lives forms after us, recording the steps we have taken.