Looking Back: The Deepest Need For Maps
Back of a Tuk Tuk, Bangkok, Thailand
Bangkok, Thailand (September 13, 2001) — You move. You move without remembering the ones you’ve left. Without a tether, without an anchor to your bed back home. You move. You have no need for memories. You have the deepest need for maps. In the overstuffed drawers of travel agencies you live a post-modern epic where nothing happens This is how you live—a pause punishable by death. With the urgency of instinct, you move against the currents of the day. Your blood thirsting for oxygen. You move. You move without remembering the ones you’ve left. Memories of home itching like a phantom limb. You move.
This is a post from our collection entitled ‘Looking Back’. It includes an occasional entry from our journals that date back to 2001 when we first began writing about living and travelling abroad. We’ll present these paired with a photo in the form of a verbal postcard. Together, these postcards provide an (in)formal and often (in)coherent narrative of the trips we’ve taken!
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Category: Looking Back
About the Author (Author Profile)
For nearly ten years now, Daniel of Two Go Round-The-World has explored how travel captures our imagination and engages our deepest emotions. One half of the duo that maintains the widely read Two Go Round-The-World blog, Daniel treats his subjects not only as works of art but also as symbols of the cultural and political forces that inspire them. His latest book, The Physics of Flocking, gathers his favourite writing featured over the past two years on Two Go Round-The-World in columns like 'Looking Back' and 'The Whole Picture'—along with new reflections.Subscribe
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One of the only known pictures of Kathryn and I online—you can just make us out in the driver’s right-hand mirror. Sneaky.
“With the urgency of instinct, you move against the currents of the day. Your blood thirsting for oxygen. You move. You move without remembering the ones you’ve left. Memories of home itching like a phantom limb. You move.”
I love this part. It’s amazing how it becomes so natural to keep on moving, despite the face that most people have remained static all their lives until they first took to the road. And then it becomes easier to keep going than to stop…