I feel my body as a map. Its lines, marks, curves and traces. Stories lived, journeys travelled, relationships and friendships treasured, children birthed and nurtured. Those unique aspects and topographic features that lie waiting to be drawn within our mothers’ and our grandmothers’ wombs. Over time we begin to recognise those traces and echoes in our own mothers and daughters more and more. I see not just their mannerisms and gestures, but their lived experiences that have shaped my own map, cast light on some areas and darkened others. I’m recognising cordoned off aspects of the territory that are still too sensitive to navigate.

Our bodies may be maps but, like books, they are open to interpretation. Their contours can change and their boundaries can move in and out of focus. I offer out an external living map that I think reads quite clearly, but I know others’ interpretations have differed greatly from my own. My internal map is more hidden, to myself as well as to others, but I’m gradually learning to navigate my way around it. I’m negotiating shores, caves and crevices that I have never visited before. I’m turning corners, encountering unexpected but welcome views. I’m opening out folds of this internal map, allowing me to read the landmass with greater clarity. 

In my looking I’m realising that this map reading is a skill and, like any skill, benefits from being practised. By acknowledging my own living map, learning from it and responding directly to it I am also participating in a dance of attention. In witnessing myself in this way maybe I might become more able to navigate the ‘beautiful, strange, dangerous, glorious, dark, wonderful, brutal, gentle wide world’ that my own map is an intricate part of.