Star Maps
Even though I grew up in a small town, I was always getting lost. "Mostly because her head's in the clouds," my father tried to explain. "She has one of those overactive imaginations." He usually made these pronouncements in hushed tones, as if I were suffering from some sort of glandular condition. Finally he settled on the euphemisim "preoccupied." If I wound up in Wagoner on my way to Muskogee, it was because I was "preoccupied." "Preoccupied" with stories. "Preoccupied" with dreams. Just plain "preoccupied."
In Tahlequah at least Grandma had been able to teach me how to locate myself by referring me to the people and values we had in common. That's how she'd first given me directions to the grocery store, never resorting to vague notions of east or west, just patiently sending me first to Mrs. Wilson's house, from there to Mrs. Campbell's house, then finally across the street to Safeway. Maps like that were lived, not followed.
During one of my early New York trips, I once became so buoyed by the sense of being at home as a writer that I decided to venture out on my own. My newfound confidence was quickly put to the test, though, when I found myself in an unsettling part of town. I say "unsettling," because I'd seen a storefront sign proclaiming, EAR PIERCING WITH OR WITHOUT PAIN, and the proprietor charged more for pain. Clearly I was lost, and I couldn't find a taxi--or a phone booth.
My only recourse was to purchase a "Star Map" from a vendor hawking his wares on the street corner. The map was of little use to anyone without my particular shortcomings, for it only detailed the locations of celebrity homes. But recalling Grandma's early people maps to the grocery store, I used Yoko Ono's apartment and Katharine Hepburn's brownstone as coordinates to find my way back again.
