'A MAP OF THEN'

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This is an excerpt from the book entitled 'Personal Maps'


 'A MAP OF THEN'

Let me
Show you
A Map
Of Then.

More real
Than this town.

Your laughter echoes
From the place
Where
We

Hid.


The 'Map of Then'
This image materialised one day when I was sitting near the open window of our little house.
I was thinking about how useful it would be if we had a map of the village. Apparently, a long time ago the streets had names and signs, and a previous mayor had even designated the steep road to the village square, one-way.  Sadly now there are hardly any street signs or house numbers. Finding anything means finding someone to ask.

It is sad to see what is happening to the rural areas in Crete.  As the old people pass away, the properties often stay unoccupied for extended periods of time, and thus the population of individual villages have declined sharply in the last 50 years.  Less funding and the decrease in occupancy has meant that some projects and priorities have suffered.

There is another factor which may explain why road signs are not critical here.  There is always a friendly local willing to tell you where to find something or someone. The size of some settlements means that distances are relatively small and the local people genuinely like to talk and interact. In any case, I realised that a map of this village would not be possible without street names and signs.

I had already started to draw a couple of the houses on the never-to-be map, and as I continue to scribble on my A4 pad, I found myself making up and re-imagining buildings, places, and streets of my childhood. What emerged was not a precise place but rather an amalgam of places and feelings.  I removed eight pages and stuck them together to form a large sheet. This simple act also meant that I was able to carry my 'map' around, making changes and working in other settings.  A large sheet gets damaged. I also like the fact that I am somehow forced to find a solution to the joints.  All these considerations contribute to a sense that this is not another drawing, but more of a plan, a map, another thing altogether.


One part of the picture makes reference to places where we played as children, hidden from adult supervision. ('Apomeries' in the bottom left corner means 'Out of the Way'.)  Elsewhere, familiar street names and houses, the villas of the wealthy and the long abandoned and neglected buildings in melancholy neighbourhoods formerly occupied by Muslim Greeks deported in the 1920s.

Comments

  1. Paul Rudman23 February 2017 at 05:18

    "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." (L.P. Hartley, 1953)

    ReplyDelete

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