Maps are cool

I grew up with a love of maps. In Walmart, I would frequently ask my mom if she could purchase me a road atlas, which I would then read over and over and sometimes fall asleep while looking at it. In my mind, maps are so much more than just a tool to help us get where we want to go. In fact, in a way, maps are a story of our civilization. They show what happened in the past, through names and historical monuments. They show what we find to be important, through marking particular points of interest.
More than just a story of a civilization, the maps we purchase and use are a story of ourselves. Are we buying road maps for a cross-country adventure? Or a topographic map to venture off into the wilderness with? Maybe you need a Coast Guard map showing water depth and obstructions to avoid while piloting your boat. The maps you own tell a story of what is important to you.
Alas, maps have become less important in recent years and many do not have an ability to read them. In an excellent BBC News article, Stephen Smith states that "discovery used to mean going out and coming across stuff - now it seems to mean turning inwards and gazing at screens" (Full text here). We don't just meander across entire states anymore, and we don't get out to ask locals about interesting sights off the beaten path. I wonder if we are starting to take the same attitude with our relationships as we do with navigation.
Let's bring in the term love maps. Love maps are mentioned in John M. Gottman's book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (which is one of the readings for my class). It's not hard to imagine what a love map is - a mental register of our partner's emotions, desires, responses, past, present, and dreams. We can say we have love maps filed away in a mental cartography department for everyone we know, but I'll just focus on those relating to our spouses.
I like to think that I know my wife fairly well, but not perfectly. I find myself at times feeling frustrated while I try to chart a course through her thoughts and feelings, similar to how I felt in Reno a few days ago as we exited off Interstate 80 to find a restaurant. As I stated in my last post, I had never been to Reno before and as such my mental map of the area was fairly basic. I was relying on Waze to get me where I wanted to go. We quickly discovered a large amount of construction and road closures due to a local event that had not been reported to Waze. This hampered our progress, made my wife and I frustrated at the world, and eventually we gave up and went to McDonald's.
What does this have to do with love maps? Well, they need to be up to date and detailed. As I get to know my wife better, I learn how to navigate through her thoughts and feelings. Sometimes there will be road closures, so to speak, where something that usually makes her happy will make her sad for a time. Other times, no matter how long you know your spouse, you will wander off a marked path down a fascinating, hidden corridor that they don't even visit often. These need to be remembered.
We cannot always navigate through our spouse's feelings how we navigate through a foreign city - typing the address into Google and setting off. Relying solely on electronic navigation sources makes it so we miss things on the side. Remember in the Disney movie Cars where Sally takes Lightning on a drive on Old Route 66, where he sees a waterfall, forest, tunnel and an old gas station? There is something profound in the scene following. Lightning looks down across the valley and sees Interstate 40 off to the side. Everyone is passing by at 70mph, and he is in awe of how many people drive past these features not knowing what they're missing.
If we live our life on the Interstate Highway System, we will miss so much. As of this writing, there are 47,856 miles of interstate in the United States. If we blaze through the country on that, we are neglecting 4,023,000 miles of roads that aren't interstates that all lead to somewhere that is important to someone. If we live our life on our spouse's "Interstates," think of how much we can miss. Get off the main roads and chart a course to somewhere new. This will strengthen your relationship, which will lead to an enhanced quality of life for both yourself and your partner.
You only know as much as your map shows.

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