Little Lost Post

I will not do that again.

Yesterday, I started a piece about the importance of maps. Blogger's iPhone app works well for on-the-go fathers looking to cram words in between adventures, and it normally doesn't fail me. So when I started the post, I naturally assumed it auto-saved when I closed it.

It did not. Also, it's worth noting that iPhones make decisions for you about what's worth keeping in RAM while other applications are running. Blogger got the short end of the stick. The unsaved piece went the way of the Dodo.

I've lost more. Fifteen years ago, my hard drive crashed, sending to Hell the only copies of short stories I wrote in college. Part of me knew I would always come back to them, improve them until they could be published. That part of me was wrong. Dead wrong.

I also had a backpack stolen out of the back of my dad's Jeep. Who would steal a backpack? I thought. Well, I'll never know, but the fact of the matter is that someone did, carrying with him or her a semester's worth of notes and drawings in a blank book they probably tossed in a ditch somewhere around Oxford, Ohio. A month ago, Simone's week old scooter was stolen from a playground FULL OF TOYS. We sat at a picnic table for snack time and then I got up to push her on the swings. When I returned, no more scooter. We searched the entire playground and outside and came up empty. A day earlier, we were talking about the surprisingly low incidence of crime in New York City.

Brandi bought the exact same scooter the next day. Sixty dollars well spent. Again. Simone rides that thing everywhere, and I love not having to carry her. We can and have traveled miles on it.

Which leads me back to the lost post. I waste a lot of words. One day I hope to waste them on the same idea, but not today. The gist of it was this: maps are useful, and have grown better since day one with the incorporation of digital maps and GPS positioning, but the best maps we use lie within our heads. In New York City, you can hardly see over the fruit stand at the end of the street, much less the stone behemoths behind it, and if you use a map, you risk vectoring in on a too-specific target. Walking suits me best. When I walk from one place to the next, I feel the geographic boundaries in a way taking the train, car, bicycle, taxi or bus miss. I see the neighborhoods lacking in direct access to healthy foods, are blighted with poverty or the simple crime of neglect.

I am immersed in New York City.

Swimming in it. And lost.