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Reflections: Wayfinding and map making
I love food and community, both separately as their own things, and the intersection of them. How food might smooth or exacerbate tensions, what access means, how we write about food honestly but hopefully.
But on a grand scale, what does "food and community" mean? I appreciate the reminders I've been seeing lately in my own ecosystem that community includes reciprocity: That I pour into my own community because whatever I give is a fraction of the nourishment and care I receive.
In an ideal community, I think this is very true (as my friend Doc used to say, "everyone take care of the person to your left,") but we don't all exist in ideal community, and many of us are wayfinding our own possibilities for giving and receive care through our imperfect connections, messy feelings, and conflicting beliefs.
On the other hand, many of us are building strong, vibrant communities, often independent of place, based on one or more important aspect(s) of our lives and identities. The ways in which my fermentation community has given me permission to grow into myself as a Queer person, and a person generally, spring to mind. Or the ways my writing community cheers each other on with each of our achievements.
I've been thinking about how we navigate our community building, and our community building with food, and I keep landing on the idea of wayfinding in a physical, tangible sense: Making maps, writing out directions on a scrap of paper, going in a direction and course correcting when we obviously turned down the wrong road a mile back.
There's an element of doing, of action, of at least beginning, recognizing we can try something else later. I think with community action and community care, as well as many conversations about food, we stop before we begin, afraid someone may be hurt or left out. We overlook the fact that our wayfinding skills are strong enough to return to collect that person if we forgot to pick them up: Or that we can choose a different path, a different vehicle, pick a different radio station, etc if that best serves all the people we're bringing with us.
I don't know where this "community/food conversations as a road trip" conversation is going. I just know it's started in my head, and might be one you'd like to jump in on, too.
In the meantime, here are a few of my current favorite current readings on food, community, and wayfinding in various forms.
For more on my own wayfinding with food, my newest exploration of the
magic of fermentation, The Fermentation Oracle, is available for preorder!
(Preorders help authors immensely, shaping the future publishing, sales, and marketing prospects for a book. So if you’re thinking of preordering, please do! We’ve got some great bonus gifts in the work for everyone who preorders).
Readings: On Maps and Wayfinding
In Robert MacFarlane's The Old Ways, he talks about wayfinding, paths, and meaning-making in a number of contexts.
But one that really resonated with me was the story of Miguel Angel Blanco's Library of the Forest, part archive, part reliquary, part cabinet of curiosities, and an important record of both place in time and place through time. Terri Windling offers a nice overview of this very special library, but I also recommend reading McFarlane's book in its entirety.Meaning making can happen in the paths between places, but within the places themselves:
I found Colin Dickey's Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places to be a fascinating overview of our relationship to haunting, both the ways haunting reflects our fears and values, but also shapes our relationship to place.Huw Lewis-Jones' The Writer's Map is an edited collection that is like candy for me as a reader and a writer.
Compiling maps, and discussions of maps, and reflections on fantasy lands, and maps of personal histories, and any number of other maps from writers, I leave with new ways to think about the physicality of my thought environment each time I encounter this book.And finally, wayfinding can happen as we find our way back to ourselves. And as we find our people.
John Birdsall's writing has long been a staple for me as a Queer woman and as a food writer, seeking my place in food and in this world, but Food Nostalgia and Queerness, and Toward a Collective Queer Nostalgia in Food especially resonated with my journey of nostalgia and wayfinding.
What readings have helped you down your own path recently? What maps (actual or metaphorical) have you found to clarify your next steps?
P.S. I'm writing a not-yet-announced article series that connects some of my great loves: Wandering, wayfinding, and book history. I am so thrilled to share them with you when they're ready!
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I love maps and map making. I found Huw Lewis-Jones’s The Writers Map at my library. What could be better than an atlas of imaginary lands? I can’t wait to dig in.