Georgia Russell at Kensington Prep School
A Place that now exists in my mind
Maps are used to help you understand what a landscape looks like, whether it is a map of a city (an “urban” landscape), or one of the countryside (a “rural” landscape). They can also give you information about any country in the world. They make you feel safer by helping you to find your way in a place you have never been to or are not quite familiar with. They tell you if there’s an airport in the middle of Hackney, a zoo on the top of one of the tallest towers in the City, or a train station under the skinny legs of the Eiffel Tower. But do they really tell you all the secrets of a place? Can you be sure of what or who you are going to discover or meet by looking at the colourful and weird lines that a map draws? Does a map warn you about all the dog poop you might encounter in a street?
What a map forgets to talk about is personal experience, meaning what people felt once they reached a place and if they liked it or not. When in Peru, you would probably find out that if you get too close to a wild llama in one of Peru’s beautiful mountains they might spit on you (to protect themselves) until you look like a giant, slimy booger. So if a few years later you go back over there, you might think of taking a rain coat with you (to protect yourself from them protecting themselves) and the tattered map you had brought with you on both trips and that was covered with llama hair and saliva still wouldn’t say “beware of the crazy, great spitters that llamas are”. Also one day you might find out that one of your close friends went to the exact same place as you did in Peru, but never saw any silly, bouncing llamas. Instead, she or he might have a strong memory of the numerous seagulls flying above the top of the mountains, and the splashy sound of the white thick liquid coming straight down from the birds and landing on her or his shiny forehead (and they would probably take an umbrella when they next went to Peru). All those very personal experiences can’t show up on maps for they would have to be gigantic in order for everyone to write what they think or remember about that specific place.