20-A Bigger Map

“Where y’all goin’?” he asked, peering over the counter at me. A Sunday, late morning…we were somewhere south of St. Louis, Missouri. “New Orleans,” I replied. “And where’d you come from?” “Wisconsin.”

I’d stopped to get gas and asked for a road atlas.

”So you just got in the car and started driving?”

I laughed, “Yep.”

In my defense, I’d driven this route several times already, perched behind the wheel of a rented 14’ truck loaded with sewing machines. The route was becoming familiar, stops determined by how early I’d gotten on the road.  Early morning start, drive to Memphis, spend the night, on to New Orleans the next day. Late day departure, drive to St. Louis, find a hotel, anticipating the bulk of the journey the following day.

This trip was in the Memphis category. My friend Martha beside me, we’d become used to the bumps and bulk of the boxy truck by the time we pulled into the truck stop in Missouri. Martha needed a better view of our route. Hence my search for an atlas.

Each trip from Wisconsin to New Orleans has held its own story, its own beauty, lessons, and mysteries. Some trips solo, holding the added tensions of finding my way without a navigator beside me. But most have been with others, folks interested in helping, in peeking into this world to see what they can see.

I’m traveling without a map for there doesn’t seem to be one big enough or broad enough to contain all of this. Oh of course, there are paper maps, the arc of the river central to navigating the city of New Orleans, and the voice of Siri as I navigate unfamiliar areas. But in the broader scheme of things it feels as though I am moving on a map without borders, with intuition as gps, listening carefully for what stops and turns to take. Each of my traveling companions a point on the route, offering a voice, an opinion, an observation that adds color and depth to the picture.

Over 14 years of The Sewing Machine Project and 20 trips to New Orleans, the map gradually is becoming saturated with color but it’s certainly not complete. In feeling my way along, I’ve invited a larger navigator and this practice has bled well beyond the edges of the map guiding me on these trips into the map of my being. Like a watercolor, the color moves unpredictably into the pages of everything I do and am, not only coloring but softening. No staying within the lines.

I move forward with curiosity, letting the Navigator, the Artist, have her way with me.