On Using a Paper Map in the Age of GPS

Written by Angela Su from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

I am always circling back to

things I meant to leave behind

my mother’s keys hitting the

glass bowl by the door,

the smell of my grandpa’s closet,

the way the shadows look through

tent fabric at noon. I am always

folding the map wrong, creasing

the edges until the town names

disappear. Shortcut, foolproof,

auto-corrected– everything is

optimized these days. Letting

a road surprise you is now a memory

drifting like faded ink. All roads

lead forward! But who asks about

how the paper stiffens and

crumples in my grip:

I ask. When did the destination

kill the joy of a wrong turn

and a pie stain on the map? The

desire for minutes saved,

the quiet rot of unused backroads–

how efficiency leaves us empty

as a drained battery. Longing,

arrival, and all things

already gone or barely there

(the difference between them

thinner than the map’s

worn spine).

And now the satellites blink

and paper is wasteful! Or is it,

if it’s recycled? I don’t use GPS.

Not because of surveillance fears;

I use a map because I like

the ink smudged on my fingertips–

unrushed, content in the art

of getting lost: all of it,

with undiscovered wonder.