When I was a child, I was fascinated with maps. Road maps, maps of California, you-are-here-maps…anything from a birds’ eye view with interstates and rivers and county lines and borders. Anything that planned out the landscape and showed me my proximity to something else.

During our family’s occasional trans-continental car trips as a kid, I could waste a good hour or two simply riding in the backseat with the map. I would stare, unfolded map flapping in the wind of the rolled-down window, at the cornfields, the small towns the old trucks as they flashed by. I would look down to see how far we’d come.

The lure of maps has followed me into my adulthood. When we travelled through France in 2001, I faithfully traced our journey on a large-foldable map of the country. Each day, for each leg of our trip, I happily studied the map and marked exactly which road we drove, to which cities and any side trips we took. I observed and labeled any town or city we might return to when we return someday: Biarittz is nice, St. Paul de Vence is quaint, and sense-intoxicating Paris, of course, is exquisite. Located in the central north of France, Paris seems to sit on a throne, looking disdainfully down on the rest of the country, as it to catch the best view.

Maps have layers and levels and unending intricacies. A wide view of the entire country can be focused down int a single tiny town with its rural roads and streams. The open landscape has an infinite number of stories to tell.

The man that I married, I have now known for over fifteen years. His face is the most familiar in the world to me and it carries with it its own intricacies and infinite stories. The face of my husband is its own map worth studying, its landscape is perfect and is complete with layers and levels and depth that are unable to be seen from the surface. His map carries the pains and joys of a life being well-lived, and I seem to be able to measure my proximity to him by looking into his eyes, our closeness is reflected there.

My children, their faces so fresh and unwritten, the landscapes of their lives have yet to be mapped. They are so close to the beginning of the process, their maps are filled with empty and fruitful fields, waiting for life to fill them up with what comes next.

Maps will never lose their charm for me, and especially those of my family, my dear best friend and my daughters – theirs are the maps worth studying for the infinite number of stories and joys they have lived and have yet to write.