An Earth with No Maps

I found this excerpt from the Michael Ondaatje novel The English Patient scribbled into an old journal from my mid-twenties, when I read that book three times in a row, flipping from the last page back to the first because I could not get enough of these words. Juxtaposed with some snapshots I took over the last week in Oakland, on Mt. Tam and at Steep Ravine outside Stinson Beach—three places you can still go despite the fact that most of my favorite hiking trails are closed right now due to the national park shutdowns. Thanks, GOP.

And all the names of tribes, the nomads of faith who walked in the monotone of the desert and saw brightness and faith and color. 

Such glory of this country she enters now and become part of.

We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead.

I believe in such cartography—to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men or women on buildings. 

 We are communal histories, communal books.

We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.

All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.

If you haven’t read The English Patient, Ondaatje was writing on behalf of a cast of characters displaced by the limiting notion of rules and maps and laws—fitting, I think, in light of what’s going on with the government shutdown right now.