Mapping Senses Analysis

Before I listened to this article when I thought of a map, I did think of a road map or some kind of cartography map and I always thought that those maps included everything because I wasn't really thinking about what 'everything' meant. I never thought of power lines or sewer lines as a map, yet they are mapped for the companies that service them. I wonder what a true map of a city would look like, would we even be able to look through it? I find myself imagining some kind of 3-d hologram like you see in sci-fi films.

The idea that any map leaves out details is interesting to me. When you focus only on one sense then you are missing out on the others, yet, when you do focus on one sense that sense becomes stronger. There's a trade-off, you're able to notice more when you're just listening to the things around you yet you lose the experience of seeing them with your eyes.

I found Deb Monroe's piece particularly compelling. She is mapping her own body through her sense of touch but her map is all wrong. She is not really feeling the truth of her own body, just want her brain thinks she feels, or rather, what her hypochondria is telling her she finds. I started to feel sorry for Deb, thinking that she was obsessing over tiny details and driving herself crazy thinking she's got some kind of terrible illness every time she comes across a new freckle or gets a headache.

I started thinking about the kinds of maps I keep and my mind went immediately to the restroom. Wherever I am, I need to know where the nearest restroom is and I chart in my mind the quickest way to get there. If I have been to a restroom before and know that it is frequently empty I keep it in my mind, building a map of the abandoned restrooms so that if I ever need them, I can find them quickly. There's one on the top floor of the Drama building that is usually empty and one on the top floor of the Student Union that is usually clear of people. The reason I do this is because I have a chronic illness called Ulcerative Colitis which can make me need to rush to the bathroom. The reason for wanting an empty one is if I am ill, I'm likely to have diarrhea which can be very embarrassing if you're in a bathroom full of people waiting to use the stall. Before I got UC I never noticed restrooms, never really cared about them but since I was diagnosed I keep a list in my head of the memorable (clean, usually empty, soft toilet paper) restrooms I've been to so that if I'm ever in that place again - I know where to go. The restroom is such a pinnacle of my illness; it's the place where I spend the most time when I am ill. It has become a much more important place to me than I'm sure it is to most people.